Travelling Through Dimensions
by EmmettMcFly55
Summary: Doc and Marty are hopping through worlds that are not theirs. Will they ever come home? Will they ever settle somewhere, or will the time machine stop eventually and will they be lost... forever? Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: **First chapter of my huge crossover story. I hope you'll all like it. Please read and review.

**Disclaimer: I don't own the fantastic movies. **

_**Travelling Through Dimensions**_

**Chapter One**

Saturday, April 2, 1988  
11:47 A.M.  
Hill Valley, California

Martin Seamus McFly sighed deeply, as he skateboarded up to the Brown driveway, and stopped to a quick halt right in front of the door. He stepped off, and picked up the skateboard. However he was nineteen, two months shy of turning twenty, he still loved to ride his old board. He'd easily gotten used to the fact that he had a truck now, especially after his memories caught up to him, but the skateboard still continued to have it's charm.

The musician looked up at the house, which was standing in the middle of huge fields, and made a beautiful picture, when you thought of it. It was lonely, standing about a quarter mile away from the nearest other house, and big enough to have place for a family and eventual visitors. Marty realized that his friend could've made far worse choices in selecting a new home for his family to live in.

The teen smiled, as he thought back to October of 1985, in which Doc had unveiled his time machine to him and taken the teen on various adventures in past, future and even farther past, which eventually had made Marty end up with improved parents and siblings, and Doc with a wife who used to be an Old West school teacher and two children aged eight and six, who hadn't even been around the day before.

Marty had barely had a chance to settle down in his new life when Doc appeared again. November twelfth, 1985, was a major day for both of them, and the teen realized that he would've been disappointed had his friend _not _showed up. Anyway, Doc had there celebrated the thirty-year-anniversary of Marty's successful return to the future, as well as their successful stopping of Biff's evil plans by burning the almanac. Also, the inventor had given Marty information about when he would return to the future.

Doc had told Marty how he'd first considered staying in the past, then he'd thought about returning to 1994. Apparently, Doc was currently residing in December of 1894 – and figured that it would only be fitting that he should return nine years later, as Jules and Verne were already older than they should be, if they were born in 1986 and 1988. Luckily, Doc had talked himself out of that – and the inventor had changed things in the past, by adding birth certificates and providing himself a nice new history for his family.

Marty smiled, as he reflected on the new series of events. Doc and Clara had first met on September fourth, 1976. Clara had, at the time, been in New Jersey, and she was studying as a school teacher. Doc therefore had decided to let her stay there, and, to give her some support, they'd married soon, on November twelfth of the year. On September twenty-fifth, 1977, Jules had come to the world – and on October twenty-ninth, 1979, Verne had followed his older sibling. Clara had finished her education in 1982, but there had been drastical problems in getting her to Hill Valley. In that fateful October weekend, the inventor had finally left to make things right – and now, they were moving back within months.

It was kind of a sloppy idea, of course, but it worked quite a bit. The inventor actually got away with it, being considered a weird guy in town by some people already. And even the others, that didn't think he was crazy, at least knew he was a bit eccentric. So, they had accepted the idea without problems, and in January 1986, Emmett Brown had settled in 1986, after having spent ten years in the past.

The teenager then sighed again, and wondered what his friend was going to have him do this time. The inventor always had weird ideas on how-to-ruin-Marty's-free-Saturday, starting with that very first time travel experience and continuing throughout '86 and '87. Probably it wasn't really done on purpose, but still, it wasn't a fun weekend. Marty wondered if he could ever get a chance of studying, today. His focus was on music, but he wanted to have his second year of being in college turn out fine and therefore, he had to put a lot of free time into his work.

Marty grabbed his key out of his pocket, and opened the door, not caring to ring the bell – he had the key anyway, and for all he knew, Clara was busy with something and didn't have time to open the door. Jules and Verne maybe could open the door, but for all he knew, they were busy playing and would be more than a little annoyed at having their game be disrupted. And Martin…

The musician still blushed at the honour of having Doc's third kid named after him, even now it was seventeen months ago the boy was born. Martin Socrates Brown had joined the Brown family on November twelfth, 1986, at 10:04 PM – Doc had talked about the amazing coincidence for weeks at the time. Marty wondered what the boy was going to turn out. An inventor, like his father – and, from what he'd learned from Jules' personality, his brother? A musician, like his namesake? The teen grinned a bit at the possibility of one of Doc's kids being a musician. What about a teacher? Like his mother, Clara?

The teenager shook his head. He was thinking about the future far too much. He had to focus on the present, on the here and now – 1988. He shouldn't just let his mind go off to the nineties and early years of the twenty-first century. Having access to a time machine (when Doc would give him permission, at least) sure did weird things to a person.

Still, Marty couldn't help but think. What would he be, in about twenty or thirty years? A world famous rock star? A poor loser like his older self that Jennifer saw three years ago… or twenty-seven years ahead. What would his son turn out to be? Marty Junior wasn't all that confident the last time Marty saw his son. Maybe the boy would turn out like his grandfather, despite everything the musician did – would do – to help his son grow up right and defend himself against bullies like Griff Tannen. Or maybe the teen would still turn out to be like his father, confident but a bit too much, and having a terrible temper that would ruin his life. Or maybe he was something in-between…

"Marty?"

The teen looked up, as he saw Verne entering the hallway from the other side. The now eight-year-old was wearing a futuristic cap, that looked even more out-of-the-eighties than the one he'd had to wear on that trip to 2015. As Marty looked closely, he could even see '2027' on it. Under that, Verne was wearing old 1880s pants, and a shirt that resembled the ones Marty wore on his visit… visits to 1955. He grinned, as he looked at the weird combination of future, past and even farther past. It was like Verne dressed just for all the periods Marty had visited. _Another sign that says today will bring something big time travel-related, _the teen thought. _Or is my imagination going to weird places and is this just showing how accustomed to other time periods the Browns really are? _

Verne stepped forwards, distracting Marty from his thoughts. "Hi, Marty" he said, smiling. "What are you doing here? Are you coming to teach me how to skateboard?" Verne had been wanting that for months, after seeing how many cool tricks Marty did on his board, both the skate- and hover-variation, last of which was safely stored in the back of the Brown's house. Ever since Christmas '87, when Verne got his own skateboard, he'd been begging Marty to teach him how to ride it every time the teenager visited.

The nineteen-year-old chuckled, and shook his head. "Nope" he told Verne. "I'm actually coming here for your Dad. He told me he had another one of his experiments planned, and I have to admit, I'm kind of curious what it is." He smiled. "I just hope he won't blow me up this time."

Verne snorted. "Like he ever did that" the boy said. "But you're right – there are some of Dad's experiments that I am a little nervous of getting too close to. Jules isn't, though – he says I'm a chicken and that everything is perfectly fine, and he continues saying that, even if something happens. I bet he'd still be saying that if the lab exploded." The boy snorted again, this time in disgust. "But I'm not chicken, I'm just being realistic!"

Marty winced a bit, remembering how much trouble his own problems with the word 'chicken' had caused him. "You're right" the teenager admitted. "I'm not always as happy to go into the lab, either. But if Doc says it's safe, I trust him. He has been my friend for over twelve years, after all. Almost 12 ½, actually." The musician peeked besides Verne's shoulder. "But now I've gotta go. Where's your Dad?" He peeked once again. "In the lab, I assume?"

Verne nodded. "Yeah, he's in the lab. I dunno what he's working on, though. Jules knows, but he won't tell me." The slight look of disgust is back. "Anyway, I better go. Mom said I have to help getting dinner ready for this afternoon." He sighed. "Marty, did your mother ever force you to help with dinner?"

"Not always" Marty said, thinking back of both the timelines he'd lived in. "But she did, sometimes. Your mother doesn't have always time – or energy – to do things. So, you should try to help her, if you can."

"Yeah, right" Verne said, not entirely convinced. "Well, in that case, I better get going, then. Mom would be mad at me anyway, if I refuse to help. Well, I suppose I'll see you around – perhaps even sometime later today." He smirked a bit. "See you in the future, Marty."

"See you" Marty said, laughing, as Verne walked off to the kitchen. The musician then took a deep breath, and headed over to the Brown laboratory at the back of the mansion.

As Marty approached the lab, he once more thought about what Doc could want him to do. The inventor hadn't asked Marty for something like this for a few weeks, having been busy with a project. Was this that project? Also, would it involve the teenager getting trapped in the past for a long time… again? The teen shivered as he thought of that first weekend. It hadn't been all bad, but fun wasn't the appropriate description either. It had been quite hard, first getting his parents together, getting back home by catching a bright bolt of lightning, then getting Griff into jail – however that hadn't been the purpose, not really – getting that almanac away from Biff, saving Doc in the Old West from Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen, and finally, returning home to 1985 in the DeLorean which was pushed along by a steam locomotive heading straight for a ravine with Doc and Clara hover boarding away from it, and, to Marty's knowledge, hovering into a life stranded a hundred years in the past. Then, the train had destroyed the DeLorean, and Doc had shown up from the past, and all kinds of weird things had continued to happen… he'd been happier than he'd ever been when that mind-wrecking weekend finally came to an end.

Marty sighed deeply, as he knocked on the door of the lab. "Doc?" he asked, wondering if the voice-identification computer was turned on. "It's me. Marty. I'm here to do.. whatever you asked me for." The teenager waited a few seconds, wondering what would happen, and then the door opened automatically and Marty walked forwards, entering the Brown lab.

What he saw was what others would describe as the work of a madman. Inventions, finished and unfinished, lying around everywhere, a huge steam train, a DeLorean filled with all kind of weird gadgets, some of them from ahead of this time. And in the centre of it all another huge thing with some blanket over it, and next to it was sitting a proud and happy but madly looking Doctor Emmett Lathrop Brown.

"Hi, Marty!" Doc exclaimed, as he saw Marty appear around the corner. He quickly ran over to the teenager and pulled him along. "I'm sorry I didn't come over to the door to great you immediately, but I was just checking my calculations for my new invention. I figured it would work, but I really was up late last night to check it – up until two AM – so I wanted to make sure that my blueprints were fine."

Marty gulped a bit at the mention of the 'new invention'. "Is that what you've been working on for the past few weeks?" he asked, a bit nervous.

"Affirmative" Doc said. "Months, actually. I started this project shortly after Martin's first birthday, when the 'kids birthday season' had come to an end and I could concentrate on my inventions again." Doc's children were born in order to month: Jules September, Verne October and Martin November. Doc often called it the kids birthday season, and around now, almost everyone in the house, including Marty and Jennifer, called that time of year that way. Of course, Jennifer also had her birthday there somewhere, on September seventeenth. Doc, Marty and Clara were born in the earlier half of the year – in March, May and June, respectively.

Marty walked up to the huge thing, which continued to be covered under a blanket – quite annoying, the teen figured, as he was getting more curious with the second. "Is that, um, the invention?" he asked. "Is that what you're going to test?" He walked around it, inspecting every little part. It was a little smaller than the train, so that couldn't be it – there was also the fact that the train was already stored somewhere else, as Marty could see, but when you had a time machine, you could easily store two versions of the same machine somewhere, as long as you made sure the past version would eventually become the older machine. Would his kids have come to visit in a future time machine? No, then Doc wouldn't have talked about a new 'invention', and then they wouldn't have come in whatever – they would've come in the DeLorean instead. Or would the future DeLorean not exist anymore? Now, he shouldn't jump into conclusions… But still, he wondered. What would this be…

"You're curious, right?"

Marty looked up at Doc, who was grinning, and blushed. "Yeah, I suppose I kind of am" he admitted. "I just – I just can't figure out what this is. It's not the train, it's not the DeLorean – it's not the size of any of them. So, Doc, I know you like keeping things a secret, so why don't you reveal to me what you made?" He blushed again, then looked at the machine in anxiety. "I don't know how long I'm going to last waiting like this, Doc…"

"You won't have to" Doc said, smiling as comfortingly as he could. He then walked over to the blanket, and in one soft pull, he managed to get most of it off, and got the rest of it off the machine before he joined Marty, whose jaw had dropped. "May I present to you, Doctor Emmett Brown's time travelling bus!" He chuckled a bit, as Marty just gasped at the whole thing.

The bus was grey-coloured – probably to have it not be discovered – and glowed like it had just gotten it's paint job. As Marty looked past the sides of the bus, he saw many seats were there, providing room for many time travellers, even more than the train could contain – well, in seats anyway. The bus looked pretty simple, and very much like a real one, except for the familiar 'ELB' logo on the sides, and a standard Mr. Fusion unit on top. Marty noticed some sort of barrel going from down below to the unit – he wondered what it was for. Underneath Marty noticed a faint shadow of what appeared to be another standard 2010s hover conversion unit. _Of course, _the musician thought. _If cars can fly, why can't busses? _

"Surprised?" Doc asked, smiling.

"Hell, yeah" Marty nodded. "An actual bus as time machine – well, I suppose it's no weirder than a train, or even a car, but it's still – weird, you know." He turned to the inventor. "This is what you've been working on all the time? And now, we've got to test it for it's first temporal journey?"

Doc smiled again, this time at Marty's usage of words that, well, _he _was more likely to use. "Not really" he admitted. "I already did that this afternoon. No, we're going to test a whole other part of the new time machine. Something that I haven't installed in the DeLorean or the time train yet, and that might prove to be dangerous enough to just keep it in this one machine. In fact, that's almost the sole purpose I created this bus time machine for." He turned to Marty. "I do have a manual, though, that will tell Clara exactly what to do, if something was to go wrong and after a day, we're still missing, so she can install the necessary components in either the train or the DeLorean and come after us. . After all, we can theoretically come back at the minute after we left, so just two minutes would be able to tell her things are 'wrong'. Yet, I don't want Clara to make hasty decisions. For all we know, the adventure we'll experience will set our internal clocks out of synch in a way that makes us forget the exact time we came from, or gives us a feeling we don't want to return to that time, as we're too tired."

"Yeah, right" Marty said, half of the speech going over his head. "So, what is this dangerous thing you just installed?"

Doc smiled mysteriously. "Follow me" he told the teenager, and went inside the bus, using the door in the front. Marty hesitated a moment, then also followed his friend inside, wondering what he'd see. He knew he could trust Doc, most of the time, but what if his friend had been underestimating the risks of… whatever this new invention was?

The teenager gasped at what he saw, as he entered the bus. Inside, it didn't look too much like a normal bus. There were weird lights and things where they shouldn't be – and next to the wheel was the 'usual' set of displays: the time circuits, and the spacial displacement circuits. The latter were built in order to have the time machine be able to travel through space as well as through time, and they were installed in the DeLorean and the train in February of last year. Marty winced, as he remembered how they had caused them some problems on time travel trips – to 68 AD Rome, for example. That hadn't been fun – he could see the lions wanting to eat him right now, even thought the event happened so long ago – time period wise and present-day-wise. He decided to just ignore that thought and continue looking around, and found a third set of displays: they weren't clearly marked, and just had one rectangle per time, making it a total of three rectangles. Every rectangle had four little squares in it, and Marty seriously wondered what they were for. Would this be the new amazing but dangerous thing that Doc had installed in the bus?

"This is my bus" Doc said, as a matter of fact. He then turned to the front, facing Marty. "Take a seat, and put your seatbelt on. In the air, we're not as likely to get hit as on the ground, but I don't want our lives to end because of a passing airplane."

"Right" Marty muttered, sitting down on the seat to the right and putting on his belt. After he did that, he looked up, and noticed Doc was just doing the same thing. After finishing, Doc stared at Marty, then at the front. "Time circuits on" he ordered. "Spacial displacement circuits on. Dimensional displacement circuits on."

Before Marty had time to wonder what the last thing meant, all three of the readouts came to life, glowing up in the dark of the hidden room the time machines were stored in. Marty faintly noticed the present time being 11:58 before concentrating on the other circuits, the new ones. Both the upper and lower readout were dark 8's, but the centre one glowed in a bright green 'PF 50'. "Um, Doc?" Marty asked, figuring this was as good of a time as any to get the big question out. "What's that?"

The inventor looked over to where his friend was sitting, and smiled. "Ah" he said. "I see you've noticed the displacement circuits. 'That', Marty, as you call it, are the circuits lining up in connection to the DFSCUPCIF unit."

"The what?" Marty repeated.

Doc smiled. "DFSCUPCIF. Short for Dimensional Flux Storage Capacitor Unit as well as Purposely Creator of an Interdimensional Field." He grinned. "I just thought DFSCUPCIF was shorter, but it remains a mouthful since you can't speak it as one word." He pointed to the back. "That's it."

Marty looked, and for the first time realized that the flux capacitor was not quite the flux capacitor anymore. Not in this version, anyway. The thing was the flux capacitor, upside-down as in the drawing Doc had made when conceiving the thing on November fifth, 1955, for the first time, with _another _flux capacitor attached to it. The other capacitor was above the first one, and was the right way up and down, which made that both of the straight tubes hit each other. Shortly said, it was just an 'X', only there was an extra stick between both of the halves of the X, making it really look weird. The teenager gasped at it, and wondered why Doc had put two flux capacitor's to each other, and why he'd even built two in the first place.

"What do you think?" the inventor asked, semi-responding to Marty's silence.

"Um, it looks great – I think" the teenager said, smiling nervously. "But why did you make two flux capacitor's? Won't one be enough for a time trip in one machine? Or has this something to do with that interdimensional thingy you were talking about?" He felt a bit confused about the whole thing. _Maybe I should've just stayed at home… then again, I'm starting to get more curious with the moment. _

"Exactly" Doc confirmed. "Have you ever heard about that story? About how when you chose to go left on a crossing, it wasn't the only choice for you to make? That you also could have gone forwards, to the right, or just turned around to go home? And how about for each decision you could've made, there are other worlds to go with that one? Entirely different space-time continuums?" He snorted. "Granted, that last solution is rather improbable, but it's possible."

"Um… no, I haven't heard of it" Marty admitted.

"It is a common theory" Doc told his friend. "It's pretty well-known. Granted, I don't entirely believe in it, as that would mean there would be universes for every little thing that every single citizen on earth does or doesn't do, but I assume that it's possible for other dimensions to exist. And just yesterday evening, I finally finished, after hard work, an invention that should make it possible for us to access those dimensions and find out what happened to us there. And that's the DFSCUPCIF." He pointed at the machine once again. "As you have seen, it consists of a double-flux capacitor. Therefore, it also needs double as much energy: a full 2.42 gigawatt. Which is easily to come by because of the enlarged Mr. Fusion generator on top of the bus." He smiled. "The funny thing is, with the DFSCUPCIF, you can both travel through dimensions, travel through time, and travel through both – it all costs equally much energy. Luckily the Fusion generator provides a clean energy providing, so it isn't that bad that time travel costs now double as much energy, as in the DeLorean and in the train – as well as the old DeLorean, from that very first time travelling weekend, which we used to travel to 1955, 2015, Biff's world, 1955 again, and 1885. Actually, only you went on the first trip, but that is not of the matter right now."

"Wait a minute" Marty said, starting to understand pieces of it now. "Are you telling me we can travel to other worlds, where you and I don't exist? Or where we do exist, but some things didn't happen to us?" He smiled. "That seems pretty cool, actually. As long as I'm not too bad off there, I'd be willing to try."

"I can't guarantee you anything, as I haven't tried it yet" Doc admitted. "But we can at least attempt to try to find things out before actually meeting our other selves, so we can leave right away if we see something that isn't quite right with us, for whichever reason that might be."

"You're the Doc, Doc" Marty said, smiling a bit.

"Exactly" Doc nodded. He then turned to the front. "All right, send out message: OCR!" The machine then did so, and Marty watched as the roof of the cellar opened, as Doc instructed. "Flying circuits on" the inventor then told the machine, and the bus lifted up. The scientist then took control, and lifted the bus vertically up from the cellar, and stopped when it was hovering about five feet above the roof of the Brown's house. "CCR" Doc then instructed, and the roof closed again. The seventy-seven(perhaps seventy-eight)-year-old then took off, and the bus started to fly towards the Eastwood Ravine.

Marty then looked down. "Doc?" he asked. "Where are you going?"

"I'm just looking for a nice place to depart from" Doc told his friend. "Eastwood Ravine should be a good place. For all we know, we'll end up in a universe in which something prevented me, or later you, from going back to 1885. We'd know something like that would be the situation if the ravine is called Clayton or Shonash Ravine." He shivered at the thought of his beloved Clara actually falling into the ravine. That thought was even more terrible than him getting shot at Buford Tannen's hand in the Old West.

"Good point" Marty said, figuring he wouldn't have thought of that himself. "What about Lone Pine Mall? That one's pretty inconsistent in the timelines, too. Or Courthouse Square…." This time it was his turn to shiver, thinking of how the Square had looked like in the Biff-horrific world. "That way, when we do end up in Hell Valley, we'll know it and we can depart right away."

"All are good possibilities" Doc admitted. "But right now, I'm going to keep things to Eastwood Ravine. We can try out one of the other possibilities at a later time." He turned to Marty. "This might be pretty fast for you, but… are you ready, yet?"

"I dunno" Marty said, shrugging a bit, feeling nervous. "What if we do end up in that terrible Biff-ruled world… again? Last time, Biff tried to come after me with a gun. This time, he won't hesitate shooting me, I'm sure."

"We'll stay in the bus until we are sure this reality is safe" Doc assured his friend. "I was committed in that world, and I'm not so sure that Biff would hesitate to shoot _me _if he found out I escaped. Granted, he knows you better, you being his stepson… yes, Marty, I know it's a disgusting thought… but I don't think he would think of me kindly, either. The fact that I wasn't committed in our timeline or in any other timeline we've visited, yet, makes me believe that my commitment was, if not entirely, mostly due Biff's hand."

"Which makes me hate that version of Biff even more, if possible" Marty said, with disgust more clearly than ever in his voice.

Doc winced. He could sympathise – however he hadn't seen his father lying dead in a grave, which, to him, had already happened over thirty years ago – he had seen himself in a straitjacket, getting sent off to the nearest mental institute. The look on his other self's face still haunted him after those three years… or was it twelve? Or thirteen? Anyway, he was sure he was never going to forget Biff-horrific Hell Valley, even if he hadn't been there for more than almost six hours… maybe almost seven, if the DeLorean had made the jump from Pacific Daylight Time to Pacific Standard Time well. He'd never checked, being too busy with everything going on, and maybe it didn't even work, due to the glitch that already seemed to be in the time circuits and later expressed itself fully when the inventor got sent back to January 1st, 1885, at midnight, the very first second of the new year… or was it the old year?

Anyway, and adding fresh new memories to that collection of memories about Biff's world was not going to help forgetting. Doc shivered a bit, as he realized how right Marty might as well be.

"So?" Marty asked, in an instant making Doc return to reality – it was 1988 now, not 1985-A or 1955 or even 1885. "What are we going to do? Are you just going to depart when we find out we've arrived in that Biff-horrific reality?" He shivered a bit, again. "What if something's wrong with the system and we _can't _depart in time?"

"Everything should be all right" Doc said. "Exposal to pollution, even so much as Biff had be around, can't do many things to the time circuits or DFSCUPCIF in the short time we'd be there, and the normal systems work fine."

"Are you sure?" Marty asked. "You've said that before…"

"Absolutely certain" Doc said. "But if you want, I can run an extra test." He turned to the time circuits computer. "Test internal functions. Sections: All. Style of process: Carefully." He leaned back. "Should be ready in about one and a half minute. It's a hyper-modern system from 2029 – that won't miss even the slightest error." He smiled. "It's going to be fine, Marty, it really is. We are going to be all right, so you can stop shivering from terror. Heck, I've never seen you this nervous on any time travel trip – not even the very first ones!"

Marty smiled faintly. "That was only time travel" he said. "In the future, we'd have technology, and in the past, we could just write a letter to Clara and wait out the time 'till she got here with the train or the DeLorean, depending on which vehicle we did not travel in. This is dimensional travel. We won't reach the present due the natural course of time if something was to go wrong, since this is going to _be_ the present – and a drastically alternate version of it." He looked at Doc in a hint of fear. "For all we know, we might even get sick in another dimension. Who can tell?"

"Who can tell" Marty muttered. "I can't, at least." He looked down the ravine. "So, are we going to leave, now? I mean, if you're so secure that everything is gonna be fine and all, then we can just leave and arrive in the first world we are going to encounter?" He smiled faintly, then winced a bit as his own words 'first world' sank in deep. "How _many _worlds are we going to visit, anyway?"

"Not that many" the inventor assured him. "Just a few, to check out what other worlds are like. I think two or three would be enough. We don't want to overload the system, or encounter things we really don't want to see, and keep hopping. Not that there would be any problems with the system" Doc assured Marty, who was starting to get his 'fear look' on his face again, "nor with the dimensions we travel through. Most likely, everything is going to be fine. I'd estimate an ninety-nine point four percent."

"Ninety-nine point four" Marty muttered. "Really relaxing." He turned to the system. "How far is that thing done, anyway? You said it would take about a minute and thirty seconds… hasn't that time passed, yet? Shouldn't that machine be done already?"

As if to illustrate his point, the machine went off with a semi-pleasant beep. "Systems fully functioning, Doctor Brown" the machine told. "No errors found. You can safely commence your travels. Have a nice day, Doctor Brown." Marty smirked a bit at the last part.

"Really efficient, those computers from 2029" Doc said. He turned to Marty. "Now, are you about ready to go, yet?"

"Yeah" Marty nodded. "It seems kind of cool and all, and if you're sure that there aren't any problems, we can just stop hanging around here doing nothing, and leave this world."

"My thoughts exactly" Doc said. He turned to the time circuits display. "Let's see, it's 12:11 now, four minutes ought to do it. We can just move the Destination Dimension one number forwards, at the first test – a positive addition, the current number plus one, might have positive outcomes on the test. Not that I entirely believe in that possibility, but who knows…" He smirked a bit. "That ought to do it. Destination: April 2, 1988, 12:15 P.M., Eastwood Ravine, Hill Valley, California, PF 51."

Marty watched as, in rapid succession, the numbers and letters filled the 'Destination' part of the screen, lighting up in a soft glowing red. The teenager noticed that now only the lower (yellow) display of the dimension circuits was empty, and that would probably change the instant they'd arrive in the new reality. He tried to breathe as less nervous as he could, wondering if he had been right and something would indeed go wrong. He pretty much trusted Doc, but the inventor's ideas weren't fool-proof either, and when it concerned other dimensions, worlds not their own…

"Ready?" Doc then asked, distracting Marty from his thoughts. The inventor had unbuckled himself from the belt, as he often did when time travelling, in order to be able to keep a tight grip on things and run around to check. Now, the inventor just smiled. "Are you about ready to access the new dimension?" he repeated, wondering if Marty, who was apparently distracted, had gotten the message. He didn't want his friend to be ill-prepared, instead fully alert when the dimensional barrier was to be broken.

"Um, yeah, right" the teenager nodded, nervously. What to expect, what to expect…

"We'll be fine" Doc said, patting his friend on the back. "We'll be okay." He smiled at Marty, then turned back to the bus. He then sat down, and pressed the gas pedal. Marty watched in excitement, as the bus rose up above Eastwood Ravine, and started moving through the sky above it at thirty-five miles per hour and rapidly accelerating up to the ever-consistent eighty-eight.

"Doc?" Marty then asked, as the speedometer just hit fifty. The inventor let the bus move forwards at a steady fifty-two and turned to his friend, who added: "Just how shaky is dimensional travel? I mean, time travel doesn't shake the car that much, but maybe dimensional time travel is different."

"That is a possibility" Doc said. "But, honestly, I wouldn't know. If you have forgotten, this _is _my first trip through the fifth dimension, as well." He smiled, and resumed the accelerating, flying the bus up higher and higher through the sky.

Marty just had time to realize that maybe he should've turned around, as the bus hit seventy and the place they were up was about fifty feet from the ground, adding another thirty feet for the ravine that continued to be under them. He gulped, and turned to Doc, who had his eyes focused on the speedometer. "Seventy-five" the inventor counted. "Eighty, eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight miles per hour!"

The DFSCUPCIF fluxed more than it's counterpart in the other time machines had ever done. Just as the time machine was about to pass over the Eastwood Ravine Bridge, the bus broke the dimensional barrier with an o-so-familiar flash of intense white light and triple sonic booms. And within seconds, the Trilogy Universe was left behind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **This is, as you figured, the next chapter, and it's long. You might fall asleep on your chair by reading this. Well, there's also the possibility that you like it. Please review, so I haven't written all this for nothing.

**Disclaimer: I don't own long chapters. Either Kristen Sheley, Mary Jean Holmes or Flaming Trails does. Not me. Oh, and I also don't own BTTF. What gave it away?**

_**Chapter Two**_

Saturday, April 2, 1988

12:15 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

Marty McFly clung himself onto his seatbelt sharp, as the white lights in front of the time machine vanished. He started feeling he was breathing again, and as the speed of the bus dropped to sixty, he realized that the world hadn't ended yet. He was safe and sound, and however they apparently were in another world, the paradoxes hadn't collapsed onto him, yet. On first sight, he appeared to be safe.

The teenager then looked out of the window, half-expecting to see something supernatural or anything nuclear. But everything seemed to be the same. Birds were flying through the sky, the trees down below were there, in the same ravine. The weather even was the same – it was bright and sunny, and it seemed to be like a relatively warm April day – exactly like it had been in their dimension.

"Doc?" Marty then asked the inventor sitting next to him, as a thought occurred to him. "Doc, what if we didn't make the transit? What if we're still in our world, because you did something wrong? It certainly seems to be too familiar to be another universe."

"Perhaps it's just very familiar to ours" Doc said, thoughtfully. "After all, the dimensional code is pretty much the same." He stared at the time circuits, which now had all squares filled with information. "Then again, it _is _possible. The Last Time Departed is 12:14 PM… means there shouldn't be any younger selves, even if we are still in our home world."

"Right, right" the musician muttered. He stared up to the world outside, which still looked as familiar as ever. It didn't look like they were in another world not their own, but for all they knew, things here were really familiar. He turned back to Doc. "So, are we going to check things out down there?"

"Um, yeah, I suppose so" the inventor nodded. "No use in hanging around here when there's a world to explore." He smiled, and started to move the time machine downwards to the level the bridge was at. Marty sat back, relaxed, as Doc flew the bus about a few hundred feet above the bridge, and onto the land. He was just feeling calm, when it happened.

Suddenly, Doc let out a scream of terror. Within a second, he slammed on the brakes. Marty felt himself pushed forwards and hit the window with his head, hard – the teen figured that, if he'd hit the glass just a touch harder, he would've broken it. Rubbing his head, the shocked musician looked at his friend, who'd gone dead pale. "Holy shit Doc!" he exclaimed. "What were you trying to do, get me killed?"

"_I_ am_ already_ killed" the seventy-seven… or eight… year-old whispered, pointing down. "Marty, look at that." As the musician frowned, the inventor clarified: "That sign down below. Tell me what it says."

Marty looked, and, after a few moments of looking over the tracks and trees, he found what Doc was talking about. The sign of the ravine's name. Once Clayton and Shonash, and in their home reality currently in the position of the name Eastwood, after Marty himself who had supposedly died there in a train wreckage in 1885, it now read, in almost-identical letters to how it had been in their world, a simple and short 'Brown Ravine'.

"Brown Ravine" he muttered. "Brown Ravine!" He turned to Doc. "This doesn't make any sense, Doc. Does it mean… does it mean that the local you got actually _killed _here? Did he live a hundred years earlier and fall into the ravine instead of Clara? What happened, Doc?"

"How am I supposed to know?" the inventor asked, in self-defence. "Am I native to this reality? Have I been here before? No – at least, not as far as I'm concerned. But I do have a few possibilities on what might have happened," he added at Marty's sad look in his face. "There are three possible solutions. One, I did indeed fall into the ravine. Two, instead of me, you were the one to stay behind, with or without Clara, and the ravine was named after me. Three, an entirely different possibility, that I haven't named yet."

"Great original possibility, the last one" Marty said, sarcastically. "And the second solution sounded awesome as well."

"Marty, you need to cheer up a bit" Doc said. "It's not all that bad."

"Oh, sure it isn't!" the musician called out. "It's not bad if my counterpart ended up being trapped in the Wild West! I didn't belong there, Doc! It's a hundred years away from home! Away from familiarity, away from my family, away from music, heck, away from _Jennifer_…" He sighed. "I just wouldn't have wanted something like that to happen. It'd screw up my life."

"Who knows, maybe did the local you actually enjoy the Old West" Doc said, his solution getting a clearly disbelieving glance from his friend. "Really, I'm serious. This is another world. The other you isn't you, it's what you could've been if you had grown up in this version of reality… that's close. It can also be the farthest solution, just someone who shares your name and is your other self in someway, but in the other parts is completely different – not you, at least."

"Yeah, right" Marty said, feeling a bit pessimistic. "What are we going to do, now? Check things out, see if you and I are all right, maybe even say hi to them, and then just leave?"

"That sort of was my plan" Doc admitted. "I don't think we really should hang out here for too long. Even if this isn't our world, it can possibly make things look suspicious for the other you and me. We'll have to be careful – we wouldn't want 'us' to get in trouble."

"Right" Marty said. "So, how are we going to look up the place you live in?"

"I'd try my home, first" Doc said. "If I'm not there, I can try the garage. If I'm not at that place either, we'll check the telephone book for information – but maybe we should go to your house, first. Then again, maybe like you, your local self still lives at home, and it's not really wise to go there. We don't want the local George, Lorraine, Dave or Linda to discover something they didn't know before – and we don't want to have the risk that Biff is visiting to wax your father's car and finds out, either."

"So, what are we going to do?" Marty asked.

"We'll head over to my home" Doc said. "We'll check up on my other self, if he lives there, and if he does, we'll ask him to invite his Marty over, and we'll compare histories. If the house is empty, we'll go to the garage and do the same. From then on it's your house, the phonebook, and, if neither of us are in there, the library."

"What if we're not in the library either?" Marty asked.

"We'll leave" Doc said, firmly.

"Okay" Marty said. "I guess I can live with that." He smiled, feeling already a bit excited at finding out more about his local counterpart. "Let's go, then!"

Doc smiled at him. "Let's go indeed" he muttered, as he moved the train forwards through the sky. Marty sat back, and waited for the bus to move over to the Brown house.

It wasn't that far to the mansion, and Marty felt the trip honestly went quicker than expected. Within just a few minutes flying, the time bus arrived above the house, which was, in this reality, still being lived in. Lights were everywhere, and Marty could even see his own Toyota truck in the driveway. _A sign this is not home, _the teenager thought, realizing that he had come on skateboard.

"Our trip went as good as could be expected" Doc said, happily. "I'll try to touch down now." He then looked at the building with an unsure glance in his eyes. "Funny – somehow, this house looks like it's more recently inhabited. Like it's only been lived in for the past year or so – as opposed to almost two."

"How do you see that?" the teen asked.

"Instincts because of this being my home, mostly" Doc admitted. "However, there's also no sign of the small check of everything that had to happen to this house every twenty months – just the major rebuilt in the start. A few of the things that were altered then, are still in the same shape now."

"So it means you're not living here for as long?" Marty said. "Like, the local you somehow moved in later – for whatever reason?"

"Yes, I suppose" Doc nodded. "I don't understand he could actually keep Jules and Verne, along with Clara, with me in the garage for some time… but maybe he just got back to the future later. Well, I suppose we'll find out." He flew the time machine down the street.

"Doc?" Marty said. "Aren't you going to visit the other you?" Doc nodded. "Then why are we flying _past _their house? Shouldn't we just park the bus in front of it?"

"I don't want to scare other-me off" Doc said. "I suppose that if he lives here, Clara is here, and if Clara's here, he knows about time travel – but he might've found the love of his life in the present, and I don't want to risk it. If he doesn't know about time travel, we can leave, and I'd prefer to find that fact out right away and not after a few hours, when local me wakes up from his fainting spell because of seeing the bus." He stared at the bus. "Granted, it's not that futuristic, but it's not quite like an every-day-bus."

"Right" Marty nodded. "But then again, Doc – seeing you will give him quite a surprise, too."

"How about I just hide, then," Doc suggested, "while you knock? You can sort of explain things at the door, tell him not to be shocked – go stand behind him to be secure that he doesn't faint – and then call out to me. I can wait for a few minutes. It doesn't have to take all that long to explain the basic parts of the situation to the local version of myself, and I'm really interested in seeing him – seeing him awake, I mean, not out-cold. So, it's in our favour if you go first."

Marty nodded, and in the meantime, the bus landed on the street. Doc got out first, being at the control, shortly afterwards followed by Marty. "Remember, try to introduce him to the situation as good as you can" Doc said, as they walked back to the house. I'll be with you in thoughts." He patted the musician on the back, smiled reassuringly, then ran off to the left side of the house, from where he remained watching what was going on.

The teenager winced nervously, as he walked up the driveway of the local version of Doctor Emmett Lathrop 'Doc' Brown. A few times, he actually refused to go further, and an annoyed yell from Doc was needed in order to get him moving again. Finally, he reached the door, and, figuring that any more hesitation would be bad for their sake – as well as Doc's temper – and he knocked, a few times, before stepping backwards to wait for what was going to happen. He just hoped that Local Doc would be a friendly guy…

After a few moments, the other Doc – Emmett – came out, and promptly frowned. "Marty?" he asked, sort of suspicious. "I thought you were just in the back. Weren't you helping me at the lab, today? I just saw you a few minutes ago!" He frowned. "What's wrong? Don't you want to help? You know how much is at stake here…"

_No, I don't, _Marty thought. "Um, Doc?" he asked, happy the inventor and he at least seemed to be friends in here. "I think you're thinking I am someone who you think I'm not."

"You're not Marty McFly?" Emmett said, obviously a bit confused about all that. "Well, if that's the case, then you must be Calvin."

"Calvin?" Marty repeated, frowning. "As in Calvin Klein?"

Now it was Emmett's turn to frown. "Yeah, as in Calvin Klein" he said, in a tone that indicated that he felt like Marty wasn't feeling quite all right now. "And as in Calvin McFly – your very own twin! What's the matter, Marty – or was it Calvin, now? Lost your memory or something?" He turned around. "I can give you some aspirin, if you're not quite feeling all right…I should have some somewhere around here…"

This was as good as a time of any, Marty figured, as somehow, he figured that Local Doc wasn't going to believe his story any time soon, as he couldn't use the 'two Marty's' argument – there was obviously already a 'Calvin' who looked like him. As Emmett turned around, Marty turned to the other side. "Doc!" he called out. "You can come!"

Emmett turned back, and frowned. "I'm already here" he said, puzzled. "Don't you want aspirin?"

Marty shook his head. "No, I don't – but I wasn't talking to you." He pointed at the visiting inventor, who was just running towards the porch. "I was talking to him over there."

The face Emmett made could've belonged in a comedy television show. "Great Scott!" he called out, perplexed. "You can't be here! The time machine isn't even finished yet, and I sure would remember any visits from the past, with the first DeLorean!" He frowned. "Unless you're from the future, of course – you _do _look a little older. Which year are you from?"

"1988" Doc said, thoughtfully. Emmett frowned, which caused Doc to frown as well. "Does that surprise you so much?"

"Yes" Emmett said. "First of all, that's _this_ year. Second of all, you look like you're in your late seventies. I would've expected you to be from the mid-nineties to late nineties." He turned to Marty. "Is this my Marty, or yours? He does look like mine, as he's just nineteen, instead of being in his late twenties, as your Marty McFly should be now."

"It's mine" Doc said. "That's what he meant by saying 'I'm not somebody you think I am'. I am not, either, by the way." He stared at Emmett. "We're from 1988 – April second, even. But we're from an alternate reality." He paused to look at his counterpart's face, which turned to one of surprise. "Do you recognize the term?"

"Yeah, I suppose I do" Emmett said. "Are you from Hell Valley, then? That's the only alternate world I've seen before, after all… did you somehow come from there, change history back to the one as I remember it, and then travel here?"

"No" Doc said. "You're still wrong at your guesses – we're not from that world." He smiled. "You do seem to take the whole we're-from-another-reality thing rather easily."

"I _did _build a time machine" Emmett pointed out. "I'm used to a little strangeness. However, this seems stranger than anything I've ever heard of. How can you be from an alternate reality, and not Biff's? That's the only one we've ever caused!"

"That's because I'm not from a world you caused, neither is Marty" Doc said. "We are from another dimension. A whole other space-time continuum with our own future and past. We came here with the help of a dimensional displacement device, in our time machine."

"Wait a second" Emmett said. "Do you expect me to believe that you're really from 1988? From today? That you're not from the future?" Doc and Marty nodded. "But how did you get a time machine? Mine was destroyed in a train wreckage on October twenty-seventh, 1985! The whole town had gossips about it for a long time. How can this possibly be, that it hasn't happened to you?"

"I told you, we're not from this world" Doc said. "We're from a completely different reality, in which I still have a time machine – three of them, actually." Emmett's mouth fell open. "Yeah, three. But, anyway, in our dimension, things happened differently than in yours. You've heard the story, right? About how one decision to go forwards can lead to one universe, a decision to go to the left can cause another, and…"

"…how the decisions of going to the right and going back home all together can cause two more" Emmett finished. "Yeah, I've heard that story. So, your reality is completely unconnected to ours, in any way? Then how did you get here, if you couldn't just travel to the past and alter things to make our home?"

"I built my own dimensional hopping device" Doc said. "I even built a new time machine for it – a bus, to be exact. The machine took me months to build, but I just finished it yesterday. This is the test run – in fact, yours is the very first dimension we visit."

"Amazing" Emmett said, sighing. "I wish I had the abilities to do something like this, but I'm busy building the new DeLorean. Anyway, can I invite you two to come in? I'm sure that Marty would be kind of curious to hear more about you, and Calvin will probably be as interested, even though our present time machine is in the final stages of getting ready."

"Who's Calvin?" Doc asked.

Emmett frowned, then smiled mysteriously. "If you don't know him, well, then I'll let you find out for yourself. I'll call him over here, and he can tell you personally who he is, and then you can learn his amazing identity."

Doc snorted a bit at the mention of this Calvin having an 'amazing identity', as he didn't figure that it would be _that _surprising. Still, he kept quiet, and followed Emmett into the living room.

Marty, in the meantime, just looked around and gasped at his surroundings. The Brown family living room looked pretty identical to how he knew it, and it made him feel at home. Yet, within seconds in there, he saw the first thing he didn't recognize. In fact, it did look familiar, and when it turned out not to be, that was when it hit home hard – they were in another world.

Doc was the one that discovered the mysterious thing first – it was a box, with inside a toddler who seemed to be just a year and a half old. "Martin?" he asked, short and sharp, simply presuming that the young boy in the box was his (and his counterpart's) son.

Emmett frowned. "No…" he said, frowning. "That's Jules."

Doc gasped. Marty frowned. "Jules?" the inventor said, amazed. "That's almost impossible!"

"Jules Martin Brown, if you meant that by naming my son by his middle name" Emmett said. "The son of Clara and I. Born September twenty-fifth, 1986." He frowned at Emmett's reaction. "What was his birthday in your world?"

"September twenty-fifth, 1977" Doc said, fascinated. "How come he's so young here?"

"I could ask the opposite thing to you" Emmett said, seriously amazed. "Why is your Jules so old? I didn't meet Clara until 1985, when I took the time machine back to the Old West. In 1977, I was just working on the time machine. Why did things go different in your reality? Did you first test your time machine on October twenty-sixth, 1976? Did you conceive the flux capacitor on November fifth, 1946?" He then frowned. "Now, wait, that's a Tuesday. Saturday, November second, then? Saturday, November ninth?"

"Nope to all of your possibilities" Doc said. "I did finish the time machine in 1985, and tested it on the date you mentioned. However, the 1977 date was just a cover date. It was just a date to cover the fact that, in 1985, Jules was already eight – as the first eight years of his life he'd spent living in the Old West."

"You lived in the Old West for years?" Emmett said, apparently seriously considering to faint after all.

Doc nodded. "I got stranded there on January first, 1885, and didn't leave it for good until January twenty-eighth, 1895. That was when I moved to 1986, on the same date. I met Clara during that time, fell in love, and I had two sons with her, Jules and Verne." He then realized something, and sighed. "If your Jules was born in 1986 instead of 1886/1977, then Verne has yet to be born. Now I already spoilt his name…"

"If it makes you feel better, I do in fact already have a son named Verne" Emmett said. "He was born on October 29th of last year: 1987. Is that different from what you expected?"

"Yes" Doc said. "Our Verne got born on October 29th as well, but in 1888, which was two years after Jules. I suppose that, being in the Twentieth Century without fears to alter history, Verne was born sooner in your world? A year sooner than if the natural pattern of getting children, or at least natural to our perspective, had continued to run it's course?" He smiled a bit, chuckling faintly. "Amazing. I wonder what exactly caused that particular change between our dimensions to occur."

"I wonder about that, too" Emmett said. "We'll compare stories of our lives, but first, I'll get Marty and Calvin over here. They'll be furious on me if it turns out they missed out all the fun." He smiled, and walked away through the door.

Marty – visiting Marty – immediately turned to his friend. "All right Doc, what's going on here?" he asked. "How can this you have kids born in this century, while you got them in the Nineteenth Century? Or is he just making things up?"

"I highly doubt that possibility" Doc said. "Not only is he, well, me, and I wouldn't lie to a version of myself, also, I can now clearly see that this is a version of Jules and not of Martin. Look at his eyes: they're obviously blue, not brown like Jules'." He looked around the room, then spotted something that didn't match with his memories as well. "And if you need any more proof, look at that."

Marty followed the direction Doc was pointing at, and gasped. Above a cabinet that didn't look out of the ordinary, was a wedding picture. As the teenager walked over to it, he could clearly see Doc and Clara standing in it, smiling happily. Everything matched with what he remembered from the wedding picture Doc had shown him many times back home, only there was the fact that the photograph was in colour, not in black and white, the writing underneath said 'November 12th, 1985' instead of 'November 12th, 1885' and, last but certainly not least, there were two Marty's and one Jennifer there, standing also in the picture where in the pic he remembered, there had just been Doc, Clara, and their witnesses – Seamus and Maggie McFly, who in this picture were nowhere to be seen.

"Amazing" he whispered, unaware of himself semi-copying Doc's reaction. He started to wonder how this could be. How could it be that Clara went along with Doc to the future? Or did they just wait with having children until the time train was finished? No, that wasn't really likely. It was more a possibility that Clara had indeed somehow come along. But how? And how was that supposed to explain the _second _Marty McFly in the photograph? Had Seamus come along as well, and somehow removed any details that made him not look like Marty? But if the accident had happened after all, had Seamus never gotten back home? And was he the mysterious Calvin, perhaps?

Questions, questions…

"Hey Doc, I don't see any versions of my-holy shit!"

Marty abruptly turned around, to face, well, himself standing there, eyes almost bugging out of his head, mouth wide open. "Holy shit" the native Marty repeated, staring at visiting Marty. "You're me! Not my twin, but really _me_!"

"Twin?" visiting Marty asked, frowning. "What are you talking about? I don't have a twin… do you?"

Local Marty nodded. "Yeah, I do." He then snickered a bit. "However, the stories around how he came to be are a little, well, how do I say it… _complicated_…"

"What's not with them?" visiting Marty joked, pointing at the two Doc's, as Emmett had just re-entered the room as well. Both inventors shot visiting Marty a look. "But," the visitor continued, "anyway, maybe we should talk about that for a while. It seems like your history was different from ours." He pointed at the photograph. "For example, I don't ever remember being at Doc's wedding with Clara. That happened in 1885 in our world, not in 1985." He then realized something. "You do know where we're from, don't you?" he asked, concerned he'd made his counterpart be even more confused at the mention of 'our world'.

Local Marty nodded again, this time a bit hesitating. "Yeah" he said. "Doc said that you're from another world, in which things didn't go like they went in our world. I guess Doc staying in 1885 instead of 1985 would be one of the differences, huh?" He grinned. "Boy, I wonder what Cal would say about this… he's once written about something like this, but never about _us _actually travelling through dimensions like that."

"One of the big differences at least, yeah" Visiting Marty said, turning the subject back to what his counterpart originally said, and then he frowned. "Now, I'd like to meet this 'Calvin' person you and Doc – other Doc – keep talking about. He doesn't exist in our world." He then laughed. "Doc, got any suggestions on keeping you two – and us two, for that matter – out of each other while speaking? This is getting confusing!"

"I can assume that" Emmett said, looking amused. "How about I'll be Emmett, and my counterpart Doc? Marty's, you can be Visiting Marty and Local Marty, respectively." He turned to the phone. "Anyway, I'll contact Calvin right now. He'll be certainly interested in seeing you. After all, he's been wanting for me to complete the new time machine for the past two-and-a-half years. I'm almost glad that I'm nearly finished because I won't have to hear Calvin complain anymore." He chuckled. "If you've got a time machine that travels through dimensions only, I don't suppose you could take him to his home time, could you?"

"Well, it does have the ability of travelling through time, as well" Doc said. "But first of all, we don't really know Calvin's home time. As far as we are concerned, it could've been 1988." He looked up to Emmett. "So, I'm pretty interested in meeting this Calvin person, as well. He does seem to be one of the bigger differences between our world and yours – maybe even the biggest."

"If you really don't know him, you'll be surprised" Emmett said, dialling a number. After a few mind-wracking seconds, the person on the other side of the line answered. "Hello Mr. McFly" Emmett said. "Yeah, congratulations on your fiftieth birthday. You're going on that special day, on Saturday the sixteenth, with your family?" There was a pause. "Yeah, Marty told me. Have fun, then." He paused, as George apparently said something. "Anyway, can you tell Calvin that something has come up over here?" Emmett then nodded. "Okay. Will do. See you later!" He hung up. "George is off to tell Calvin about it. He'll be here within fifteen minutes, knowing Calvin."

"Okay" Visiting Marty said. "Um, Emmett… boy, that feels weird… not to be impolite, but do you have any food? We're at the same time as you are, and it is lunchtime, after all…"

"Great Scott, that's right" Emmett said, gasping. "It's 12:40 PM. Come on – I've got something here. I can make you two some bread, in just a few minutes – Marty can make his own lunch, if he wants. Local Marty, I mean."

"You don't have to go through all that trouble for us" Doc protested, shooting Visiting Marty a look. "We already have some food, in the time train. You don't need to prepare some more for us."

"No trouble, no trouble at all" Emmett insisted. "I just want to make sure you're fed well before you leave again." He smiled, obviously a bit envying the inventor. "I can't believe it. Actually travelling through dimensions. I would want to do something like that as well – I'd love to do something like that. Seeing other me's that are not just future or past versions… actually interacting with a present self." He frowned. "Although, if I understand correctly, my 'present self' from your world is actually from April 2, 1888?"

"That's correct" Doc said. "Actually, more likely it's February 12th, 1888, seeing that you moved ahead another fifty days, when going back to the future – while I never skipped those fifty days between September seventh and October twenty-seventh, 1885."

"You're the me, me" Emmett said, smiling. He then headed off to the kitchen, and went to prepare some food. Marty looked after him, as he started wondering what exactly the other Doc's – Emmett's – kind of food would be like.

As the bread was finished, it turned out to be not that bad. Emmett had not put the butter on the bottom of the slice, nor had he put the cheese on the other side. They were all cheese and ham slices, for the simple reason that Emmett currently had no other things at home. Marty happily ate it, and as the meal was finished, it was 12:57 – and the familiar sound of a skate/hoverboard could just be heard, rolling up the driveway.

"Ah, there's Calvin" Emmett said, smiling. "Two minutes late – probably had to grab a snack himself. I'm sure you two will be interested in seeing him."

"I don't know about Marty, but I sure am" Doc said. He stepped up, and walked up to the door. Visiting Marty just sat there, nervous. There were a few introductions in the hallway, and a few short explanations, and as the clock hit one P.M., Calvin McFly entered the living room.

Visiting Marty gasped. This was him! Well, it certainly did look a lot like him. Calvin McFly was Marty's twin from up to down, except for his obviously brown eyes. "Hi" he managed. "You're… Calvin?" There was something strange about his counterpart's twin, but he couldn't place it…

"Yep, I'm Calvin!" the teen called out, cheerfully. "Calvin Arthur McFly, identical twin brother to Martin Seamus McFly." He looked at Local Marty. "Well, actually I'm not his twin – I'm an adopted twin. George and Lorraine took me into the home the day we returned from 1885, with the DeLorean. Had to explain them the whole story in order for them to believe my so-called appearance from out of nowhere. Dave and Linda don't know, though. They believe what the rest of the world believes: that I was adopted on June eleventh 1968, and that my adoptive parents died in September 1985. That was when I started looking for my real parents." He grinned. "Of course, that's just a cover story – the truth is really different."

"What _is _the truth?" Visiting Marty asked, anxiously.

Calvin sighed deeply, and turned to Doc and Local Marty, who both nodded. "I'm from the future" he started. "I came here in a time machine that Doctor Emmett Brown invented and I'm your future son, Marty McFly Junior."

Visiting Marty's eyes widened. "Marty Junior?" he repeated. "Boy, so that's why you looked familiar…" He sat there, feeling unable to do anything. "How did you get here?"

"Let's start from the beginning" Emmett said, interrupting. "We'll come to Marty Junior's issue later on." He turned to his counterpart. "Were you born on March twenty-third, 1920? Son of Friedrich Von Braun and Sarah Anna Lathrop?" Two nods. "Read Jules Verne for the very first time on June seventh, 1931, which caused you to devote your life to science?"

"Exactly" Doc confirmed. "Did you reach your doctorate on October twenty-eighth, 1944, after long delays?" A nod. "University professor from January twenty-sixth, 1946 on?" Another enthusiastic nod from Emmett. "Father died in a crash March eleventh, 1954? Mother survived but died on December twenty-seventh of that year?"

"Precisely" Emmett said. "Now, Marty, I suppose it's your turn."

"Born on June ninth, 1968?" Visiting Marty started. "Son of George Douglas McFly and Lorraine Sylvia Baines, who were originally unconfident and alcoholic – Mom at least – but are now a science-fiction author and a local tennis player?" Two nods. "Met Doc Brown October 26th of 1975?"

"Yeah" Local Marty said, amused. "Did you get to travel back in time on October 26th, 1985?" A nod from visiting Marty. "To November 5th, 1955?"

"Yeah" Visiting Marty said. "Let me guess this right. You found out you had no plutonium, and headed uptown where you met Dad and ended up shoving him out of Grandpa Sam's way, who was about to hit him. You then woke up in your mother's bedroom. She tried to get closer to you, but you managed to get away before she did anything weird, and fled to Doc's house after a short meatloaf dinner that was cut off by your Mom squeezing your leg. You did not realize that she had a crush on you because the mere thought was just too terrifying, so you couldn't bring yourself to imagine that?"

"Precisely!" Local Marty exclaimed. "Then, you went to Doc's house, who had just come up with the flux capacitor. After telling Doc about his invention he believed. At home you discovered the lightning plan, and the erasure of existence of Dave. The next day you spent at home, and Monday you tried to approach Dad but he didn't want to take Mom out. That night, you dress up as Darth Vadar from planet Vulcan and threaten him. That afternoon, Tuesday, George is this close of asking out Lorraine when Biff comes in and you skateboard away from him, crashing him into manure. That afternoon, Lorraine asks you to ask her to the dance – and you volunteer to ask her out?"

Visiting Marty nodded. "Then, we get to come up with a plan that involves us hitting on Mom and Dad rescuing her. We tell George, but he doesn't understand and we spend Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning to convince him. Saturday evening we go to the dance only to find that Lorraine makes moves on us instead, as she kisses us. Then Biff comes and locks us up. When we return we find that Dad has punched out Biff, but the photograph isn't restored because when we got saved, the guitar player sliced his hand causing the kiss' inability to happen. We play the guitar, almost fade but get rescued just in time, and then play Johnny B. Goode which is not exactly appreciated. We then go to change clothes and try to convince Doc once more to read the letter. Then we head back to the future by the lightning bolt."

"Fascinating" Local Marty whispered. "We make it back to the future only to realize the Libyans have already shot Doc as the engine of the time machine stalls. Doc is alive as he's read the letter after all, and he heads to the future. Next morning we wake up to see Dad's an author and played tennis with a thin Mom. Dave works at an office and Linda has boyfriends. Then we meet Jennifer and Doc almost knocks us over as he returns from the future and asks us to 'come back with him'!"

"I wouldn't call that asking" Visiting Marty said, sarcastically.

"Marty…" Doc said, giving his friend an amused, yet somewhat insulted glare.

"Hey, it's true!" Visiting Marty laughed. "Anyway, we then go to 2015, Jennifer is knocked out, and we go save Marty Junior from Griff." He stared at the other boy in the room, still unable to believe it was really his son. "I then buy an almanac, but Doc throws it in the trash. Then we head to Hilldale as Jennifer is taken by the cops to her home. I… get distracted, and Biff flies off with the time machine up to 88. In the meantime, Jennifer is at her home, and finally is about to get rescued when she faints seeing herself. Biff then returns, and we arrive just in time, apparently, to place Jennifer in the DeLorean and head back to 1985!"

"And here's where I come in" Calvin said, quietly. "In this world, I saw the time machine, and decided just out of curiosity to climb inside the back. I did feel a slight weird feeling as the timeline changed into 2015-A, but I left just in time, apparently. We arrived in 1985, and while Dad went to see his house in that world, meet alternate Strickland, and faint at the Pleasure Paradise, I just walked around town, horrified, met Dave, and ended up getting knocked out as well. Woke up about three quarter after Dad did, and I ran into Doc – Emmett – on the way back from the Paradise. I revealed who I was, and Doc volunteered to take me back home first, before the time machine was destroyed – but after we fixed this mess."

"There's where the difference comes in" Doc said. "I never noticed Marty Junior. In fact, I never saw him again until I moved out of the Old West. In our universe, I headed to the cemetery, met up with Marty, and took him to the lab. I told him what I'd discovered, and he went to ask Biff about the almanac. After getting the info, Biff chased after him with a gun and I knocked Biff out. We then travelled back to November twelfth, 1955, appearing at Lyon Estates at 6AM sharp."

"There's where things went different in our world" Emmett said. "Up until the almanac part it's the same, except for the fact that MJ was along, and that he was the one to get the almanac. However, Junior managed to convince me to take Jennifer and Einstein along – I can see Local Marty not having been that convincing and eventually giving up on that matter, had his son not encouraged him in that. Einie was easily picked up, but Jennifer had vanished. We flew through the entire town, and finally found her back at my lab, where she'd gone – and Biff and gang had followed. We managed to overpower them for a few seconds, enough to escape. We rapidly accelerated the DeLorean to 88 in the sky and vanished, appearing on November twelfth, 1955 above my mansion. Also at 6AM sharp, though – that's something that seems to be rather consistent between our worlds."

"Apparently" Doc said. "So, anyway, I went to fix the time circuits in my world, while Marty headed uptown. He ended up following the Biff's, but was trapped in Biff's garage. He called for me to pick him up, and that was where I did something wrong. Instead of picking him up right away, I explored the town, fascinated by visiting it again, and didn't arrive at the garage until 8:30 – nine hours after Marty had called me, about ten seconds after Marty had left the garage in the back of Biff's car, who was on his way to the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance." He turned to Emmett. "Did that go any different with you?"

"It did indeed" Emmett nodded. "Marty Junior, Senior and Jennifer headed uptown, while Einstein and I stayed behind to guard the DeLorean and, like you, repair the time circuits from their error they'd gone through moment before. Marty Senior and Jennifer followed the Biff's and, like your Marty, got stuck. It was MJ's task to rescue them, but he got distracted." He looked at Calvin, a bit accusingly.

"Hey, I didn't do that on purpose" the teen said. "First, I was walking through the park up to the garage when I had to hide as Doc – Emmett '55 was walking my way. When I hid, I almost instantly fell asleep, as Emmett '55 was sitting there and I couldn't get away. When I woke up, it was 6 PM. Emmett was the one to wake me, having fallen asleep and woken up astonished at the time himself." He smirked at the inventor, who just frowned. "Anyway, then I almost collided with Dad '55, who was on his way to the mansion. I followed him for a while, fascinated, and then realized I lost the address. Not wanting to make my folks or Emmett mad, I went searching for it, but when I couldn't find it I was suddenly grabbed for an intense amount of hunger, and I ate just a short dinner which, again, took much longer than expected 'cause Grandma Lorraine – my adoptive Mom, now – and her friends showed up. Had to wait 'till 8 when they finally got out of there." He smiled. "The positive thing was, I had got the address by that time, and I made my way over to 1609 Mason Street – only to find Biff just leaving with his car, to the dance. Then Emmett came up, and we both headed to the Square to contact Dad '85, since Emmett had left his walkie-talkie there. As Emmett just was warning Dad for his other self, Emmett '55 came up to ask me why I hadn't left yet, presuming I was my Dad. I told him I was going right away and then ran to the Dance."

"I actually put my ¾ wrench in open sight, while my younger self and Calvin were having a conversation" Emmett admitted, blushing. "It might've been selfish, but I felt bad for myself actually having to correct that mistake so rushing at nineteen minutes before the lightning hit." He blushed again. "I guess that event still happened, in your world, as Calvin was not there?"

"Actually, yes" Doc said. "It did happen. I still left my walkie-talkie in the Square, and when I went over to contact Visiting Marty and warn him, my younger self talked to me – I guess that the fact that Calvin was there overshadowed the fact that you were also there to, well, me. I don't remember clearly if I just looked for the nearest person or someone specifically… it has been over forty-two years for me, after all. So, anyway, I talked to my younger self, and I actually handed him that wrench, as he asked for me to give it to him – of course, he asked for the wrong one, and I gave, well, me, the right one. I even left on my bike, as younger me told me that we might bump into each other again sometime in the future, and I corrected him, quietly, saying 'or in the past'. Then, I also rang the bell a few times in my usual way, which, naturally, made myself feel very confused – but I didn't turn around to look."

"We then headed to the dance" Emmett added. "Well, the Marty's and Jennifer did. Marty tried to grab the almanac from first Biff and then Strickland. He then caught up with Marty Junior and Jennifer. They managed to knock out first Biff, and then his gang, and take the almanac. They then watched Marty '55 play, and then confronted Biff again, knocking him out. Afterwards, they went into the car, and we flew away to Lyon Estates to burn the almanac there. Unfortunately, when Marty Senior was burning the almanac, Biff took the book again. Marty and Jennifer chased after him, but Biff tried to overpower them, and Marty managed to escape with the hoverboard, but left Jennifer and the almanac behind. I realized what happened, and as Biff drove away, I sent Marty Junior tied onto the flag pennant to get the almanac first and then pull up Jennifer. After a little protest from Biff, we flew away, as Biff crashed into a manure truck. We then flew over to the Lyon Estates billboard, where Marty Senior already had headed to."

"That went different with us" Doc said, smiling. "Marty got through that Strickland adventure, but managed to knock out Biff only. He got chased by his gang into the dance, as they were going to jump Marty '55. Marty saved his younger self by dropping some sandbags on the gang. He then headed out to be confronted by Biff. Biff called him chicken, and Marty had just turned around when Marty '55 came out and slammed the door into Marty '85's face. Luckily Biff didn't notice there were two of them, but he did notice the almanac, kicked Marty twice, and then left the kid. Marty then went up to the roof, and we started following Biff. Marty Senior had then the whole tunnel adventure, but Biff was chasing him on the hoverboard, and I was the one to drop the rope for Marty to grab, and yeah, Biff crashed into manure, and we headed over to the billboard." He looked at Emmett, who sat there, looking pretty fascinated. "Anyway, Marty burned the book, and just as we were displaying our joy over the changed newspapers, lightning hit next to me. Marty yelled at me to be careful not to be struck, but that just happened – and I vanished into the past, to 1885. I was stranded there for a few months, as the time circuits microchip was broken, and when I realized I loved 1885, I left the DeLorean in the Delgado Mine. Luckily I'd thought to leave Western Union a letter for Marty. Marty read it, and headed over to confront me '55. I immediately fainted at the sight of him."

"Sounds familiar" Local Marty said. "Emmett, too, got struck by lightning under similar circumstances. Emmett '55 also fainted, and MJ, Jennifer and I brought Emmett home. Next morning he woke up to find me there, along with my future son and girlfriend!" He chuckled. "Took him a while to get used to it, but it was okay. Also, we read the letter, and the next day, we headed out to the Mine. Blew up the entrance to get in. We got out the DeLorean and discovered Emmett's tombstone, saying September seventh, 1885."

"This sounds familiar as well" Visiting Marty smirked. "Let me guess how the tale continues. You headed to the party at the Square where Emmett discovered the letter. He wanted you to keep it, but you told him it'd cause a paradox. He gave in and was surprised at what it meant. You then headed to the library and found out about the picture of Emmett/Doc standing in front of the clock, and we decided to go back in time to get them home. We fixed up the DeLorean the next day, and we departed on the sixteenth?"

"Not quite" Local Marty said. "Everything matches up, except for the fact that, while the DeLorean was ninety percent finished on Tuesday night at 10 PM, when we turned in (I know, early, but Emmett didn't want to do too much of a rush job), we had to go clothes shopping on Wednesday, to find appropriate clothes for MJ. Home, we checked over the DeLorean, and finished it. At that time it was 7PM so we ate a quickly cooked dinner and had a happy last night in 1955. Thursday morning at 11, we then finally headed back to 1885!"

"Unfamiliar" Visiting Marty said. "Well, except for the last part of course."

"Well, for us, the whole story is unfamiliar" Doc defended. "After all, I never remember discovering my tombstone. I only remember two realities: one, the reality in which I never got visited by you in 1955 and the ravine was Clayton, and two, the reality in which we never saw the tombstone, but realized from the pictures in the library about you as 'Clint Eastwood' that you had to preserve the timeline and go back to 1885." He sighed. "Therefore, you were a lot more hesitant to leave than in the tale you're telling, but we both realized that it would be better that way."

"Yeah, I now remember that, too" Local Marty said. His counterpart nodded. "Anyway," the local continued, "afterwards, we had to deal with some Indians shooting the fuel line – and a bear. As we were running away from it, I fell down to the McFly farm and got knocked out. As Jennifer tended to me, Marty Junior went uptown, and that evening, he found Doc. The next morning, they went to pick us up at the farm."

"In our version of history, I did crash to the fence, but there was no one to get Doc" Marty said. "Therefore, I went to town on my own the next day – with a little help from Seamus' carriage – and found Doc there. Buford Tannen was just hanging me when Doc showed up." He smiled at his friend. "If not for Doc, I might've been killed."

Doc blushed. "Anyway," he said, "we headed up to the shop, and Marty told me the DeLorean was out of gas. We had also discovered the matter of Clara Clayton, and then went to go pick up the time machine with a drawn plan, and tried to pull it by horses and tried alternative fuel. Then, we discovered the steam train idea. As we were looking at the ravine, Clara showed up on her carriage, and the two of us went after her and rescued her from falling into Clayton Ravine." He smiled nostalgically. "Anyway, we then headed back home and we thought about what had apparently happened – a big change in history."

"Now all that sounds familiar" Calvin said. "Let me guess. The next day, Clara brought her telescope? That evening, you went to the party in the Square, and Buford threatened to shoot you? Marty then interfered by throwing a Frisbee pie plate, and Buford called him a yellow?"

"That's, unfortunately, right" Visiting Marty said, blushing. "I still can't believe that I was stupid enough to actually volunteer. I should've known that shoot-out couldn't be fair. I might be skilled at Wild Gunman, but this is real."

"Don't be sad" Local Marty said. "I was acting right as silly. And that's in the past now, by two-and-a-half years. We should focus on the present and the future."

"Right, Marty" Emmett said, happily. "That's true."

"So, anyway," Doc said, "After Marty was challenged, Seamus and Maggie showed up, telling him not to do it. Marty then first heard the tale of his indirect ancestor, Martin McFly." He looked at his counterpart. "You then headed over to Clara's house and spent the night there… moon watching?"

Emmett blushed. I-I suppose so" he muttered. "Did you go for a walk the following morning and met…"… ON only Marty, I assume. You then gently try to drop hints about dealing with his 'chicken' problem… and Buford Tannen?"

"Precisely" Doc said, intrigued. He stared at Calvin. "I suppose Marty Jun-Calvin tried to tell Marty, and you stopped him?"

"Yes – and I suppose from there, or more accurately from _then_ on, that's where things changed over here" Emmett muttered, thoughtfully. "After all, the events of that evening would have been a lot different, perhaps even in non-existence, had Cal not been around."

"What happened?" visiting Marty asked, curiously.

Emmett smiled, apparently going off in nostalgia. "That evening, I approached the campfire and told the others that I was going to stay in 1885, as I had fallen in love with Clara… love at first sight." He smirked. "Anyway, Marty – Senior – was obviously shocked, and tried to convince me to be scientific about this. I agreed with him and volunteered to come along, but my heart wasn't happy, and MJ noticed that. He then told me we should maybe take Clara with us to 1985. I told him off, as I didn't let his Dad have the sports almanac either."

"That sounds familiar" Doc said, sighing at the memory of that night, now eleven, almost twelve years ago. "Only, in our case, it was Marty Senior who tried to convince me."

"I figured as much" Emmett said, nodding. "So, anyway, Marty Junior obviously got annoyed. He reminded me that Clara was, in fact, one of us now – she shouldn't have survived. He told me that if I wanted to be a responsible scientist, I'd have to do one of two things – push Clara back into Shonash Ravine, or take her with us, to the future." He smiled at his counterpart. "I suppose you can understand why I chose the second option."

"Yeah, I most certainly can" Doc said, baffled. He turned back to Calvin. "Throw her back into the ravine?"

"It was the only way to convince other-you!" the teen protested. "But you're right, maybe I should've been a bit more tactful…"

"You can drop the 'maybe'" Visiting Marty muttered, clearly shaken. "Holy shit… I don't think that even _I_ would've ever done… I mean said… something like that."

"I wasn't serious!"

"You guys are indeed being overly shocked at Calvin's words" Emmett said, defending his friend just like he would've done with the kid's Dad, had Marty Senior been in a similar position. "Too shocked, to my opinion. After all, he wasn't saying I should throw Clara off – he was saying that was just _one _of the things a responsible scientist, which I was trying to be, _could _do." He glanced over to Calvin, and gave the future teen a reassuring smile. "If anything, Clara and I owe this happy future to him. And I keep to that, even after seeing you two show up today." As he noticed Doc's confused looks, he asked: "During the long time you've additionally lived in the past with your Clara, over nine years if I remember correctly, haven't you ever worried about the changes you were potentially causing to the space-time continuum and the natural flow of the course of the time stream?"

"Of course I have" Doc said, in self-defence. "Some days, when I was getting in a paranoid mood, I even felt insecure about shopping." He looked at Emmett, clearly envying him. "I suppose that, other than those eight months, six days, eight hours and twenty-something minutes, you didn't have that?"

"That is correct" the local inventor nodded. He stared at Doc, curiously. "I take it that is the reason you moved back to the 1980s, while you were settled and had grown accustomed in and to the world of the late Nineteenth Century?"

"That, and the fact that I missed my best friend." He smiled at Visiting Marty. "The day I last saw the real 1985, not Biff's world, before going to 1955 was the tenth anniversary of our first meeting, after all – the day I truly got a friend, even though I'd known of him for twenty years before that. I couldn't just abandon Marty after all those years and after he'd risked his future, heck, his life to save me… _twice_… and even if he hadn't been there the kids would grow up in a safer environment in the 1980s and 1990s."

"Thanks for the praise, Doc" visiting Marty said. "Now, let's go back to our subject, shall we?" It wasn't complaining: it was honest interest.

"Ah, yes, I suppose you're right" Doc said. "We are getting off the main subject. Anyway, in our universe, I finally decided to say Clara goodbye. Not able to resist Clara's pleas to tell me where I was going, I told her the truth. She didn't believe me, and slapped me." He sighed bitterly, as the locals gulped. "After about an hour of riding around wondering if I should throw myself into Shonash Ravine or not, I finally headed over to the saloon, leaving Marty behind at the campfire. Pretty foolish and irresponsible, I admit, but I _had _just had my heart broken."

"I would've done the same" Emmett said, trying to comfort his grief-stricken counterpart a bit. "After all, I am you. But still… I'm glad I didn't have to go through that." He looked at Doc, obviously interested. "Go on."

"I will" Doc said. "As I said, I went to the saloon. I ordered a whiskey, fully intending to drink it. But before I got one sip, someone next to me got me into a conversation, and before I knew it, I was telling stories about the future no one in there ever should've heard – but I was too heart-broken to even care one bit about the universe, anymore. At that moment, I was actually half-hoping it _would_ collapse around me, so at least the pain would come to an end." He sighed, thinking back to that terrible night.

"I repeat, I'm glad I never went through that" Emmett said. "But go on. Seeing how you turned out, I'm sure that not all of your story is negative."

"That is, lucky enough, right" Doc confirmed. At around 7:45 AM, Marty raced into the saloon, telling me to go back with him. I agreed, and toasted on the future with the others. Less than three seconds later, I fell onto a table, out-cold."

"Why do I have the expression this is getting to be just like something out of a movie?" Local Marty said, chuckling.

"You wouldn't think that if you were the one going through the whole mess" Visiting Marty said, grumpily. "But anyway, I was immediately shocked, and tried to revive Doc. Chester, the bartender, had some stuff called wake-up juice available, and I kind of figured that'd be the best we could get." He grinned. "We poured it in, and seconds later, Doc was running out of the saloon, and dropped his head in the horse trawl. It was no help though – he was still out. While I was waiting for the stuff to really catch up to him, Buford Tannen arrived."

"Heavy" Calvin groaned.

"You bet" his identical twin/father nodded. "In our world, Junior just told me the truth about Needles, and about my problem – and Do… Emmett successfully told Clara the truth. Around the time 8am Monday arrived, Doc, Cal and I were on the outskirts of town." He smiled. "We had to make a different approach which caused us to just miss the train. We went aboard, MJ the last, and we successfully managed to, um, borrow it." He smirked. "Doc pulled the track of the switch, and the train then moved to the DeLorean, leaving behind the wagons." He looked at Visiting Marty, curiously. "So, how did your fight go?"

"Well, I didn't feel like going out there to face Tannen," Marty admitted, "especially since the tombstone had already started to read 'Clint Eastwood'." The locals gasped. "Everyone said that I'd be a yellow if I didn't go out there and I thought of Seamus' brother Martin and I…" He shrugged. "Something clicked inside me at that moment. I just didn't care anymore. Not what Tannen said, not what _anybody_ said. I just was through with it." He smirked. "Funny enough, I'd just spoken up my thought, and Doc raises up behind me, having finally returned to consciousness." He chuckled. "I have to say destiny has a strange sense of humour."

"It was no destiny" Doc corrected. "It was just a case of coincidental timing that I woke up the nanosecond I did."

"Whatever" Marty muttered. "Anyway, Doc and I tried to escape through the back door. Would've worked if one of the gang members hadn't seen us and decided to try out his gun. I dived into the closest shop, but Doc was taken hostage and led to the Main Street. Buford told me that I had one minute to decide before he'd shoot Doc."

"Perfect" Local Marty whispered, horrified. Immediately, he grabbed Emmett's arm and clung to it as if his mentor was in as much danger as his counterpart's had been, hundred-and-two years and one dimension ago.

"As I then looked around, I saw a stove door and decided to use it as a vest to protect me" Visiting Marty continued. "I attached it to myself, then came out, just in time. I got shot at before I could make one protection move, and Buford approached me. I then stood up, revealed my vest and punched him with it. Then I switched to my fists, and managed to have him first break the tombstone and then fall into a manure wagon." He smiled. "Everyone cheered. The deputy arrived to get Buford, who told him that he hated manure, out of the cart and let his men chase the gang. Doc caught up to me and we watched the tombstone on the picture fade, leaving behind nothing but an empty grass field."

"Now that sounds great!" the local musician commented, enthusiastically.

"Exactly" the visitor said. "Anyway, we then heard the train whistle. I gave the gun I had to Seamus and we chased after the train. After a few minutes, we were at Coyote Pass. Doc got aboard, I followed and we borrowed the locomotive. I turned the switch, and we rode the train over the side spur, Doc happily pulling the whistle, and finally stopped at the time machine."

"Sounds familiar" Local Marty said. "In our world, we then caught up to Clara and Jenny. MJ got in the DeLorean, and we started the train. That was pretty cool, riding in an actual steam train. After a few moments, about half a minute, Doc asked Calvin the speed. He said twenty-five. We both thought that was too slow but Emmett didn't, so we let that matter slide. Emmett then threw in the Presto Logs, and at thirty-five, we went out of the cab. I breathed hard and my Doc calmed me down. We then were about to start heading to the DeLorean as, at forty miles per hour, Buford Tannen showed up, with a gun."

"That sounds mostly similar" Doc said, trying to ignore the feelings of terror he got, thinking back to all that happened in his version of 1885. _It's all in the past, it can't harm you, Buford's been dead for decades…_ "In our world, I went into the train and Marty in the DeLorean. I, too, went back at thirty-five, but I continued my way and at forty-five finally arrived at the front of the train. Like your Marty I was afraid and had too much fear to jump on the DeLorean. Marty, coming out to yell fifty, noticed that and he encouraged me to go for it. I would've done just that if the train whistle hadn't sounded. As none of us were in the cab, I felt confused and looked who it was. And guess who I saw, head sticking out of the cab and waving enthusiastically."

"Clara?" Emmett suggested, smiling broadly.

"Exactly" Doc said, nodding and blushing. "I yelled for her to climb out to me, as we'd passed the windmill. She came, and I moved back. We went through the fifties and sixties like that, just climbing along while Marty kept his door open."

"That sounds exciting" Calvin said. "Then again, we had to deal with Buford trying to shoot Doc and Dad. That's why I flew at fifty towards him. I rescued them by throwing a walkie-talkie to Buford's hand, causing him to drop the gun. Dad then kicked him into a bush, and together, we headed back to the time machine. We arrived at 72, and then…" He paused dramatically. "The red log hit."

"Sounds familiar" Doc said. Clara and I were about to grab each other's hand when that happened. The boiler exploded, my feet slipped off so I only held on with my arms, and Clara was hanging off the train on her ripping dress which caused her to get closer to death each second."

"Holy shit" Calvin exclaimed. "Well, in our world, things weren't fun either. When the DeLorean lifted off the tracks, we all fell inside one way or another, Einstein in the middle of it all. Dad's foot hit the time circuits and they reset to January first 1885. At that point, we were going at eighty-five."

"How on earth did you survive?" Visiting Marty said, gasping. "I would've been killed for sure."

Calvin blushed. "I simply hit the dashboard, causing the displays to flash again up. At the instant before the car hit 88, it changed to October 27th, 1985, at 11:00 AM. Then, we vanished into the future."

"Quite the climax" Doc commented. "I suppose a train then came along, and destroyed the DeLorean, while you were all just barely able to escape?" Calvin nodded. "I see. That happened in our universe to Marty, too."

Calvin caught what he didn't say. "Only to Marty? What happened to you, then? And Clara? You obviously didn't die, as you're here right now…"

"I was getting to that" Doc said. "Marty, in the DeLorean, lifted off the tracks, falling backwards in the car, and forwards again as the DeLorean fell back down. The speedometer raced past seventy-five and Marty then noticed the hoverboard. He wanted to slip it to me, but thanks to my warning narrowly avoided a smash into a board standing there. We then hit eighty, eighty-two if I'm correct, and Marty slipped the board. I caught it and moved to Clara, who just fell down. I caught her on the last minute and we flew away from the train. In the meanwhile, the DeLorean hit 84. Marty shut the door, and after a few seconds he vanished into the future. The train smashed through the 'End of Track' sign, and Clara and I watched it go down into the ravine, where it exploded."

"That's pretty much of a climax indeed" Local Marty said. "So, other-me, what happened to you, after the train raced through the time machine?"

"I walked around the wreck a bit, feeling sad that Doc was gone forever" Visiting Marty said. "Finally, I headed back home, where I met up with Biff waxing my truck – back to normal. After seeing my family head out to brunch, I drove the truck over to Jennifer's house, where I woke her with a kiss. We then drove off to Hilldale, where we, unfortunately, met up with Needles and his gang of three."

"That happened to me as well" Local Marty said. "Did he ask you to race him, and called you a chicken? Did you pretend to accept the challenge, but drove backwards instead of forwards?"

"That's right" Visiting Marty said, happily. "We saw that Rolls Royce, and apparently that brought back memories of Jen's trip to the future. She pulled out a fax saying 'YOU'RE FIRED' and when I looked at it, it shimmered and faded. Jen and I then headed out to the train tracks to show her the wreck. So we walked around, when we heard bells ringing – and there weren't any trains. I just had time to say 'what the hell' when, with three sonic booms, Doc's train appeared on the tracks, out of nowhere – and we got knocked backwards into the grass!"

"Pretty impressive" Local Marty said, smirking.

Emmett, however, widened his eyes. "A train?" He looked at his other self with awe. "You've _got _to tell me what all happened in the Nineteenth Century."

"Let's first finish the story, okay?" Doc chuckled. "We'll get to that, eventually. So, as I was there, I showed Marty the flux capacitor, which was outside on the train, and gave him a parcel with the framed photograph of us at the festival, which I had picked up a few weeks after that fateful September week – Saturday, October second, if I remember correctly. Jennifer showed me the fax, and I told her the future was whatever they made of it, so they should make it a good one. I then lifted up the train and flew away, rapidly accelerating up to 88, and travelling to 1894."

"The End?" Calvin asked.

Doc grinned. "No, thankfully not. After a few months, I started to miss home seriously, and on December twenty-fifth, we went to visit the McFly's on the same date in 1994. Older Marty told me he'd become a… let's just say he had a happy career and was married to Jennifer, and not at the Chapel O' Love, but he didn't really look that happy about the past years. Suddenly, I felt sorry I missed all that. I considered moving to 1994 for a few weeks, but on January thirty-first 1895, the tenth year of my stay, I decided to make it 1985, after all." He smiled. "It took me two weeks to come up with a good plan, and on February seventeenth, we went to visit Marty on November 12th, 1985 and told him the news. We then invested some things for later, and at home, I started planning."

"It took me a few weeks in my home time, but on March second, I went to visit Marty on Christmas 1985, and I took him back to 1976, where Clara and I married on November twelfth, he being the son of 'Calvin Klein' to cover up the fact he was nine years older than eight-year-old local Marty. After the ceremony, I brought him back home."

"Clara and I then started looking for a new house, which we found on the outskirts of town. I contacted Marty on April third in both '95 and '86, and together, we renovated the house. Finally, on May first, we left 1895 and settled in 1986, more than five weeks before my deadline: Marty's eighteenth birthday."

"Quite the happy birthday" Calvin smirked. "Having your best friend back after six months…"

"Hey, I'm just glad it wasn't nine years" Visiting Marty said. "By the way, what happened to _you _after that accident with the DeLorean in '85? You're still here."

"Well, Doc first married to Clara, right on November 12th" Calvin said. "Then, he managed to find some tools – and he started working on the time machine in December. He worked hard on it, until Clara announced her pregnancy in early February. He then continued, however a bit slower. As he was working hard on the time machine, he hadn't got too much money – so, by June, he restarted working on his business, leaving just the weekends free for working. In September, Jules was born – and almost three months later, Doc moved into this house. We then arrived in 1987. On April ninth, my birthday, Doc showed me a DeLorean, in which he went to install a plutonium chamber. In June, he then worked more on the time circuits – which were finished in September. Doc then only worked on his job, 'till mid-October, when he quit work for a month to be with Clara, who gave birth to Verne, who gave birth to Verne on the twenty-ninth. Doc then resumed working on the flux capacitor. He told me it'll probably be done by May first." He grinned broadly, clearly looking forward to that particular event. "And then, I can _finally_ go home again, after two-and-a-half years."

"I can't believe you managed that long" Visiting Marty said. "I mean, you grew up with hoverboards and all…"

"It isn't what it was cracked up to be" Calvin said, shrugging. "Also, I had company. But I do really want to get home, now. It's been so long since I saw Marly, and my folks at the age they're supposed to be… His eyes suddenly glowed up with hope. Hey… you've got a time machine, right? You can bring me to 2015?"

"I can, but I'm not sure if that would be that intelligent" Doc said. "After all, I'm not sure if the time machine could handle an interdimensional visitor not native to it. It should, there's no apparent reason for it not to do so, but I don't want to take any chances. Second, I'm not sure if you can just return right away – you'll need to explain why you look a little older, even though your age is not very apparent. That is a task we don't have the time for. Third, your Doc spent almost two-and-a-half years on his time machine… you don't want to go back to another one at the last moment, do you?"

"I suppose" Calvin said, sighing. "I just was getting excited at the idea, though. But you're probably right that I shouldn't just let Emmett down like that." He smiled politely at the local inventor. "I'm sorry about what happened, Emmett. If I offended you…"

"No, no, it's fine" Emmett said. He looked at Doc, anxiously. "So, now you're going to tell about your Old West adventures, right?" He looked as anxious as a young puppy hoping to get some food, obviously over-excited.

Doc chuckled at his counterpart. "Yes, I am" he said. "If you really want to. But I must warn you – it's a long story…"

"I don't care" Emmett said. "Tell me, please."

"All right, alright" Doc said, smiling. "It all started really when, after almost four weeks, I decided to propose to the woman of my dreams, Clara Clayton…"

* * * *

Doc's story was, as he had previously announced, long. Visiting Marty listened for a while, but finally headed off around two. At about three-fifty P.M., Doc finally finished the long tale, causing Calvin to tell, on his turn, the adventures that had happened in the past years. Finally, it took another hour before the visitors finally decided to go. Doc collected Marty, who'd gone to help Clara watch little Verne before deciding this idea was not as intelligent to do after all – it made him feel more bored – so he went to read the local inventor's copy of 'Twenty Thousand Miles Under The Sea'. He'd just started to get interested when Doc told him they had to go, and he went out annoyed. Before they could leave, though, Emmett asked them to come to the garage for a moment. There was a large… something, with some kind of blanket on it, and after a few seconds carefully inspecting it, Doc knew what it was, although the link wasn't made with Marty until Emmett proudly pulled off the blanket and revealed the vehicle underneath it in all it's glory.

"The DeLorean!" Marty exclaimed, astonished. "The original one – from before that trip to twenty-fifteen!"

"Not exactly" Emmett corrected. "This is a different DeLorean. There are still parts from the former machine in it, but it's a different car. Yet, it looks similar, with the plutonium chamber and no hover-conversion." He sighed. "Once I get to go to the future next week, I'll get that corrected right away."

"Next week?" Doc asked, frowning. "Didn't I hear May first as the scheduled completion date earlier on? Or is my memory wrong?"

"You're absolutely right" Emmett said, blushing. "Actually, I just lied to Calvin about that. In fact, the DeLorean is less than a week away from being finished – so, if I work on, I should be able to finish it on time for it to be a birthday present, as Calvin will be twenty on April 9th, although even substracting those six days between October 21 and October 27, his time trips have probably made him a few days older, than he really is supposed to be, if he aged naturally."

"I suppose so" Emmett said, nodding. "May I see the inside of the machine?"

"Certainly." The gull-wing door opened, and Doc looked at everything. Except for a lot of wires around that had to be connected and/or hidden, everything looked similar to his original machine. "Amazing" he whispered, fascinated.

Emmett proudly smiled. "Thanks" he said. "It was a long way to get there, but I'm definitely proud of the result."

Doc silently agreed with that, as he and Marty headed back to the bus. The inventor waited for the 'crowd' to have gathered, before lifting the new time machine off the street. He noticed the locals gasp, especially Clara, as she was the only one who had never seen a flying car before – except for little Jules and Verne, of course. Doc smiled proudly as he took the bus up high before setting off for the ravine.

"Here we are again, Brown Ravine" he muttered, as he slowed down the machine in order for the Destination Time to be set. "Only now we know where the name came from. I suppose that, after my counterpart, along with the others, vanished, the locals named the ravine after him, as he'd been there for the longest time." He stared in front of himself, thinking. "I wonder how my folks reacted to this when they arrived in this world's version of the year 1908…"

"They must've thought it was cool" Marty said, obviously not interested that much. "Hey Doc, when are we going now? What time of day, I mean?"

"I suppose we can just keep it to the current time" Doc said. "No need to change something that fits. Let's see… according to my watch it's now 5:20, so that's where we're going, however it's just 5:18 here." He turned to the time circuits. "Insert Destination Time" he ordered. "April 2, 1988, 5:20 PM, Hill Valley, California, USA, PF 49."

"We're going one back this time?" Marty asked. "I wonder what that'll be like… this world was definitely interesting. You know, I wouldn't mind having MJ as a twin, as well. It'd be nice to have a brother to really be friends with. Honestly, I kind of envy the me from here."

"I can understand that" Doc said, nodding. "Having something to share things you like with can be very pleasant. I never had something like that in my youth, so I can certainly understand that longing."

"Right" Marty said. "So, are we leaving now?"

"I suppose we should" Doc said. "There is nothing leaving us here." He started to fly the train over to the Eastwood… Brown, Marty corrected, Ravine Bridge. "This way, we'll see the bridge and ravine name immediately after arrival, and we can make sure that we skipped dimensions" the inventor explained.

"You're the Doc, Doc" Marty said.

"That's right" Doc said. "Ready, Marty?"

"Ready" the teen called out, somewhat weakly.

"Set!" the inventor cheerfully exclaimed, accelerating the bus over the bridge and then the tracks after it. At sixty, Marty checked his buckle. At seventy-five, the teenager grabbed the sides of the chair tight, watching the speedometer as it rose quickly. And at eighty-eight, the DFSCUPCIF – the Dimensional Flux something, as Doc had called it – fluxed once more and the time bus left the reality of the Future Son Universe.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own You-Know-What. **

**Author's Note: **It took some time, but here you go - the new three chapters! Finally. I hope you'll all like this Chapter, as a lot of things appear in this chapter. Also, at the end, we finally get into the phase of not being able to return to the Trilogy world, which naturally causes a lot more hops to happen. Just some information:

1. This reality is not supposed to be depressing. I know Marty is trapped in the fifties, but everything turned out fine in the end, so it's not that depressing.

2. If you think this chapter is long, you haven't read the fourth one yet.

3. Please read all the way down to the end and then review. I appreciate 'Good story', but some more description of what exactly was good and why you thought so are nice as well. For an example, look at Bttf 4444's original review to Chapter One. If you don't have time for a long review, okay, but I would certainly like it. Thanks.

4. Now, on with the story.

**Chapter Three**

Saturday, April 2, 1988  
5:20 P.M.  
Hill Valley, California

Once the electricity vanished again and the bus almost instantly started slowing down, Marty immediately recognized his surroundings as being the same they'd departed from, both times. Wherever they were, it was another 'looks like home' reality. The teenager took a deep breath and looked at Doc. "So, what's it like, here?" he asked, curiously.

"At first sight, it appears to be rather similar to the world we're from, as well as the previous one we visited" Doc said, looking down. "Which, as I'm sure, you too have already figured out." His eyes then nearly bulged out of his head as he recognized something. "Um… correction" he whispered, pale. "This is suddenly not so much like home after all." His voice sounded shaky, and the look on his face was one as white as a sheet.

"What's it?" Marty asked, unbuckling his seatbelt as the speed had dropped to a miserable twenty, and standing next to his friend. "Is it Biff's world?" That was the only thing the teenager could've thought of as causing a similar reaction with his friend.

"No, not that – the skies would be dirtier and darker then – but judging from what I'm seeing down below, that couldn't have been much worse." He pointed down. "Look at that sign over there and tell me what you're seeing."

"The sign?" Marty asked, confused but curious. He looked down – and after a few seconds, he immediately got why Doc had been so shocked. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed, keeping to stare at the sign saying the ravine's name, hoping that it would change, but the writing did not go away. "Clayton Ravine!" He realized what this meant. "Doc, does that mean that Clara – did Clara…" He couldn't quite bring himself to say the dreaded word.

"You meant to say, she died?" Doc finished. "It's okay, Marty, you can voice your thoughts. I suppose it's only natural, considering the exact circumstances of how the saving event came to be in our world – it was very complicated. It shouldn't surprise me that Clara did meet her destined fate somewhere, but… Great Scott, this is much to take for someone unprepared."

"I understand, Doc" Marty said, sighing. He knew how much Clara meant to the scientist. Except for a few brief dates with a few girls in his very early youth, and his doomed relationship with a certain Jill Wooster in 1959, Doc had never really loved a woman like he did with her, even from the very earliest moment in 1885 on. Marty only had to imagine for a second that he would see what was practically Jennifer's tombstone, and he knew enough to know that Doc wasn't overly exaggerating what he was currently doing, and he understood exactly why his scientist friend was in the mood he was in right now. And he had to calm down the inventor. "It's okay" he told his friend, quietly. "Just… relax. It's okay, Doc."

"I suppose" the inventor sighed. "Great Scott… poor Clara…"

"Doc, maybe it was another Clayton" Marty said. "There could've been other Claytons back then – did Clara have any relatives around?"

"Nope – only in New Jersey" Doc said, sighing. "Marty, it's nice you're trying to get me optimistic, but we'll have to face reality." He grabbed his handkerchief, wiped off some tears, then kicked on the accelerator. He then chuckled. "Funny, I'm not sure to hope that my other self has found someone else, which is making him happy and me happy for him but me also feel betrayed in my feelings that Clara was the one for me – or to hope that he hasn't found someone else, which proves those previously mentioned feelings but would make him be a very unhappy version of me." He sighed. "Well, I guess we'll find out which one is true on our own, as soon as we get to his – my – house."

"You mean, we're actually going to visit the you here?" Marty asked. Doc nodded. "But I thought for sure we were going to turn around, after all you felt when you saw the ravine's name. If you felt that much at seeing the ravine's name sign, which is not a living thing… what will you feel once seeing the local you, who probably never built a time machine in the first place, so he still looks every bit of his sixty-eight years?"

"There is the possibility that he still built the machine" Doc said. "Don't make any conclusions too soon. That's partially why I, too, am interested in this reality. Even if it is bad, we might be able to learn a lesson that we can successfully put to use in our world. And at least it doesn't sound to be Biff's horrific world."

"That's right" Marty said, nodding. "So, where are we headed to now? Your mansion?"

"If you mean, the mansion I currently live in – yes, we are" the scientist said. "It was a successful place the last time, and I don't doubt that it will be again, this time around."

"You're the Doc, Doc" Marty said, nodding. "So, tell me again, what were we going to do if this is not your home? Check JFK Drive?"

"I suppose" Doc said. "The phone book is our last resort – we don't want anyone seeing me looking up my own address. Then again, we don't really want to have them see the bus either." He slapped on the dashboard with his hand, frustrated. "Next time I go to the future, I'm going to buy some kind of invisibility device. We know what Biff seeing the time machine and realizing what it was in 2015, and even if, due to the locks I've partially already set on the time machines and cellar, they can't get in, the rumours will sure increase if it's spotted. Especially in a past time, where history is still not set and can be changed, that could potentially be dangerous. We don't want the younger me to get committed, which would disable him from finishing his time machine on time, possibly causing a major time-paradox which would unravel the very fabrics of the space-time continuum and destroy the entire universe. Granted, that's the worst-case scenario, as the destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy." He smiled optimistically. "Still, we don't want to take any unnecessary chances that can be avoided easily."

"You're right" Marty said, head shaking from that lengthy explanation.

"But first of all, I want to check something else" Doc said. He turned backwards, and picked up some device. "Temporal Natural Flow Monitor, on" he instructed. "Display current time lapse."

"What's that?" Marty asked, going over to his friend.

"It's the Temporal Natural Flow Monitor" Doc said. "It displays the time we've been onto this. I brought it along so I could test it, too." He looked at it. "Let's see… we are currently supposed to be at 5:24 PM, and according to the time display, it's 5:23. That shouldn't be too much off. Of course, I can't really check until we get home, when we'll go back to fifteen past noon." He checked again. "We are supposed to have been doing this for 5 hours, 9 minutes and 21 seconds now. It seems this machine works as it should."

"Okay" Marty muttered. He then looked outside of the window, and noticed they were almost at what hopefully was the Brown home of this world, too. Apparently, while they were talking, Doc had been flying the time machine over to where they were going to go, now. He waited patiently as Doc turned towards the street the house was on, and then flew over to their property…

And he then gasped, as he really could not believe just what he was seeing. The house was still pretty much the same, but it looked like it had been lived in for a long time – even Marty could see that. The garden looked very beautiful, and there appeared to be buildings on the property, that weren't there in their world. Overall, it looked like this world sure was quite different from theirs.

"Oh man" Marty whispered, as he wondered what would've happened. "Did you, somehow, finish the time machine much earlier here? It looks like you've been living here for a long time."

"That doesn't explain the fact that there's no Eastwood Ravine" Doc whispered, also stunned. "I suppose my first theory, that my other self has found someone other than Clara, might held some truth. While I really feel happy for him, I just can't bear the thought that I might actually fall in love with that person – or that my feelings for Clara, even if that doesn't quite happen, will never be the same again. This just is so strange."

"I agree" Marty said, staring at the house. "So, are you going to land, now? Not to be pushing things, but I don't think we'll find out much, just hovering in the air like this… besides, I'm kind of curious to what made this change come to be… aren't you?"

"Yeah, definitely" Doc said, turning the time circuits off just in case and landing the bus a few hundred feet away from the house. "Well, I guess we'll find out now. Marty, you approach the door again – I'll wait from the same spot I was in, in the previous dimension." The teenager nodded, and they both stepped out of the bus. After locking it as tight as he could with usual keys and thumb-pad, the scientist and his assistant headed over to the big mansion that the Local Doc, too, owned.

Marty sighed, as he approached the door, after Doc had ran off to the side of the house. He felt a little nervous about doing this, but if he had to… he sighed, and rang the bell, nervously breathing and silently hoping this Emmett would take the unexpected visitors as well as the previous Emmett had done.

After a few seconds, the local inventor opened the door. Marty inspected Emmett's face carefully. The Doc from here looked… older, somehow. Not really old but more tired than the Doc Brown he was used to. Yet, Emmett had obviously had the rejuvenation and was still energetic, but most likely something had tired him a bit.

Doc – Emmett – frowned. "Calvin?" he asked, the question clearly directed to Marty. "What are you doing here? No offence, but I thought you wouldn't come over until eight PM tonight." The scientist stared at his watch for a moment. "So unless my watch has given up on me, you're early. After all, it's only 5:32 PM and 51 seconds, now."

Marty frowned, too, from what he'd heard the local inventor call him – Calvin. Had they, somehow, travelled back to the previous world? No, that couldn't be it - he remembered looking at the Destination Dimension before and after the trip, as well as the present dimension one. Either the machine or his memory had failed on him and they were back in the world in which Marty/Calvin was brought back from 2015, or something really strange was going on.

"I know you like hanging around here, but I hadn't thought you'd come early just for that" the inventor continued. "After all, this is your first night getting back to Jennifer in ages, and I know you want to continue being with her like you're supposed to be, since you are destined to marry and have kids after all. Well, not destined, but the last time we checked out the future, you two definitely were just that." He sighed. "Well, I suppose I can't blame you for anything. You can come in, Calvin – your Dad's here too, along with your uncle and aunt." He chuckled amusedly at the last part, and Marty got the feeling that this mentioned couple might not be what Emmett told it to be.

"Well, Doc," the teen started, figuring this time was as good of a time as any, "I'm not sure if I… you know… really am what you think I am."

Emmett frowned slightly. "You're not? Well, then you must be Calvin's son from the future."

This was starting to turn out to be an awful lot like the previous talk he had with the other Emmett, and Marty vowed that, next time around, he'd let Doc do the talking while he'd stand behind a corner and watch. But the next time wasn't now and the sooner they were going to get through this part, the better. "I'm not that either" he said, making sure that his alternate inventor-friend understood him and was not distracted by other things, like it sometimes happened with his Doc. "I'm not from future or past – I'm a Marty McFly from an entirely different dimension."

When the teen saw Emmett's eyebrow rise and mouth fall open in disbelief – funny, was he mistaken or had that already happened at the moment he said 'Marty McFly'? – he figured that there was one way to convince his scientific alternative friend. He turned, and called out: "Doc, you can come out now!"

Marty slightly enjoyed the shocked look at Emmett's face, as Visiting Doc came running their way. "Great Scott!" the inventor gasped, thereby reassuring Marty that, wherever they were, it was someplace quite similar to home… but maybe it was not, in some other ways. He frowned, wondering what they were going to hear from Local Emmett.

The latter had, in the meantime, come considerably close to fainting, but had apparently hesitated at the last moment, as he still stood solid on both feet, although shaking a little. "Great Scott!" he whispered, and then, the could-be-expected line they knew was gonna come all along: "You're me!"

"Not exactly" the visitor pointed out. "I am the you of another universe, like Marty has already told. I'm what you could've become, if the life you lead turned out like mine." He smiled, though even just faintly. "I am, by the way, very curious to what life you did lead, in here. I've already noticed some discrepancies, in the name of the local ravine."

"Really?" Emmett asked, frowning. "I've never known it as anything but Clayton."

"In our world, the school teacher that Clayton Ravine was named after was saved from falling in by Marty and I, back on our trip to 1885" Doc explained. "I can still remember quite clearly how I felt, when I first set my eyes on miss Clayton – Clara, that's her first name. It was almost thirteen years ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday. We got married within two months afterwards."

"Amazing" Emmett said. "I actually got married to a Julia Clayton – on February twentieth, 1959."

"You finished the time machine in the 1950s?!" Doc exclaimed, stunned. "In my universe, I didn't get a visit from Marty until November fifth, 1955 – and I didn't finish the time machine until thirty years later, on October 26 of 1985!"

"That sounds similar" Emmett commented.

"Then how can it be," Doc argued, "that in your world, you married your wife so early? That would screw up history for sure, and cause Marty to arrive in an entirely different 1985 from the one he left!"

Emmett frowned, then gasped, and then was about to say something when he realized his surroundings. "We should get in, so we can add the locals to our current discussion" he said. "I'm sure that they'll be quite stunned to hear about your visit. It is now clear to me that your history went entirely different from ours – and if I remember what you said correctly, I think I've got the clue to the change."

"Then you've got more than I do, because I don't have a single idea what the hell is going on here" Doc muttered, following the local inside after Marty did the same thing. "Except for, of course, the fact that you are from a universe that is clearly entirely different to ours, like you already said, but I don't know what caused the change – and I'm _very_ interested to hear about that."

"Me too" Marty admitted. "I mean, you're from another universe – but in what ways? Why are we so different to you?" He followed the local inventor into the living room, Doc following a few feet behind because he'd been too occupied by gazing at the furniture – and suddenly slammed to a halt, eyes wide open. "Holy shit!"

There were George and Lorraine, his parents, sitting on chairs, all looking normal. There was an unfamiliar woman which had a stunning resemblance to Clara except for being thinner and having blonde hair and blue eyes and a slightly different facial shape, which Marty gathered to be the local inventor's wife. That, in fact wasn't too strange of a sight to see either – they were no doubt going to run into her sometime during their visit here. No, the real strange thing, which made Marty skid to a stop within a fraction of a second, was the fourth person, sitting on the bench and relaxing.

The person in front of him, sitting on the bench, was none else than himself, probably the local him of his reality – but he was _old_! Late forties, from what the teen could gather, probably closing in on fifty, and Marty could already see faint traces of wrinkles on the man's face. As Local Marty turned to him, his jaw dropped even more – the local was wearing a wedding ring. He was _married. _In '85. The guy looked good for his age, and Marty figured he was going to look just like this by 2018.

Old Marty then noticed the visitor, too, but remained calm, his face not showing the slightest hint of suspicion of who Visiting Marty really was. "Hi, Calvin" he said, casually. "You're early."

"Ca-Ca-Ca-Calvin?" stammered the dumb-founded Marty, still in complete shock.

Old Marty rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Calvin" he said, voice showing an obvious hint of sarcasm. "That's your name isn't it? Calvin Klein Junior? I'm your Dad, so it's logical that I know who you are. And you can't have changed it in the short time you've been away from here. I last saw you this morning, and then you still were the same person with the same name."

Marty turned as white as a sheet at these revelations. This person that was supposed to be him, thought he was Visiting Marty's father… and if he'd called Marty Calvin Klein Junior, then he himself had to be Calvin Klein Senior… Calvin Klein…

Suddenly, the whole picture formed in the confused visitor's head, and he suddenly realized just why this other, older self of his was the age he was.

This Marty McFly had _never _made it home from '55, that first time around due that lightning bolt. He'd been trapped there instead, and had been forced to live all the years up to his present.

That sudden information, along with exhaustion from his Dad's fiftieth birthday party for the family yesterday, as well as tiredness from studying the past few days and absorbing all those info from other dimensions, made Marty feel more exhausted than was good for him. His mind went blank, and he passed out, dropping to the ground.

* * * *

"Marty?"

The teenager faintly blinked. "Go 'way" he muttered, turning to his side.

"Marty?" the voice insisted. "It's me, it's Doc."

Marty groaned, and ignored his friend. "Leave me 'lone" he muttered.

"Marty?" the voice was even more persisting this time. "It's _a_lone, and _a_way. And if you don't open your eyes now, I'm going to have to take drastic actions. I know you're awake."

The only response he got was the nineteen-year-old rolling onto his other side. He could just ignore Doc – he wasn't finished sleeping yet…

And then, he suddenly smelled something salt, and very, _very _disgusting. The teen sneezed, moved a bit, and when the salt thing just moved along, he blinked, sneezed again and opened his eyes good, recognizing Doc above him. "All right, I'm awake" he muttered, sitting up. "What's so important that you have to wake me for?"

"The trip to the new world, or more accurately, our home" Doc said. "Although I figured that, before doing anything even remotely similar to that, I'd like to wake you up. It's been almost three hours since you collapsed in the hallway to the living room – it's eight-twelve P.M. now."

"Collapsed?" Marty felt his head ache, and rubbed for a moment. "I-I remember something… about that… I saw me as an old man…"

"Now come on, I'm not that old."

The voice of a person who was, in a way, himself, made Marty almost go through the roof in shock. "What… the… what the" he stammered, looking past Doc into his other self's eyes, and figuring that hadn't he just been out for almost three hours, he'd faint again. This Marty was one heck of a lot older than him, and not even the worst kind of youth filled with abuse could've caused it. "How… how old are you?" he managed to bring out, still gasping.

"That's a really nice question" Local Marty said, grinning. "Nice first impression to make. But, to answer your question, I'm forty-nine, soon to be fifty in June."

Marty frowned. "Does that mean that you're not born on June ninth, 1968?"

"I never said I wasn't" the forty-nine-year-old replied.

Marty frowned, then remembering his latest suspicion, the one that had triggered him into fainting. "Then, I suppose you never got home from 1955 after getting stranded there without plutonium?"

His quick reply shocked both Old Marty, Emmett and Doc. "You're getting smart, Marty" Doc commented. "I didn't figure that out until a few minutes later."

"I must be gaining intelligence by studying at college" Marty said, too shocked to really smirk. He looked at Old Marty. "So, how did you get stuck back there? And how on earth did you survive through all those years trapped in the past?"

Old Marty sighed. "It's a long story" he said. "It took a long time with your Doc – Emmett told things then, so I guess now's my turn. I'll try to keep it short – I know what I was like, back at nineteen, going on twenty… back in early 1958." He paused for a moment. "At least you don't have to tell your story – Doc, your Doc, already did just that."

"Go ahead and tell your tale" Marty said. "I'm listening."

Old Marty then started to tell the long story, from the beginning on. Apparently, on the way to the clock tower, back in '55, lightning had hit a tree next to them, and a branch of the tree broke off, like that almost-strike the second time around, the one before Doc, in the flying DeLorean, had been struck by lightning. This time, it had far worse results. The branch hit the windshield, blocking everything from young Marty's view. He'd panicked, and after a few seconds he'd managed to hit a trash can. That had made him completely go off the road, and racing through the grass field, it had been just a few seconds before the DeLorean had crashed right into the Courthouse wall, coming out of the accident total-loss.

After that, Marty had been tended to by Emmett, and had woken up on the fourteenth, finding out the truth on the fifteenth. During the first few weeks, George and Lorraine had frequently come to visit, and Emmett had worked on the yet-to-be constructed time machine, or more specifically on how the flux capacitor was going to work.

By the time it was late November, Emmett got his friend registered for High School under the name of Calvin Martin Klein, which he was going to keep for the rest of his life. After a depressive New Year, Marty had attended school from December on, and, as he worked hard realizing being a rock star was near impossible in 1955 and later 1956, he managed to graduate in June easily, and he was starting to feel more confident and happy, encouraged by his friend, and actually started enjoying things in the fifties.

"Let me get this straight" Marty interrupted, shocked. "Are you telling me that you, Marty McFly, kind of started to enjoy life in the fifties?"

"Yep."

"…Doc, what kind of weird, twisted world is this!"

Emmett, George, Lorraine, Old Marty and Doc all laughed. "It's not as bad as it seems, Marty" Old Marty said, calming his counterpart down. "I'm still you and I did have many adaptation problems. But George and Lorraine here, not knowing who I really was, grew to be my good friends soon and they helped me cheer up a bit. Yeah, that year between mid-1956 and mid-1957 was a nice, fine year. And before you ask – yeah, our teenaged mom really did something else than just hitting on me."

Lorraine snorted, a bit insulted, and Marty simply chuckled. "That's good to hear" he commented.

"Or so I thought" Old Marty said. "And now, on with the story."

Apparently, the bad times had started in July of '57, when George, having finished his first year in college, had approached Marty with the question of the teen was interested in attending college as well. Marty had approached Emmett, the inventor had told him a blunt 'no', and that was when the bigger problems started. Marty started avoiding the over-paranoid inventor, and Emmett, on his turn, tightened Marty's freedom – George and Lorraine could only come over once a month anymore, and after November twelfth, when Marty had sneaked out for a day and a night, they weren't allowed to visit at all, anymore, and Marty was kept within the house.

Over the months, Marty got to be more rebellious than ever, and he sneaked out of the house many times, with Emmett worrying about him. When it had been a year since Marty had done that day-and-night sneak-out, Emmett figured that they'd never ever be friends again.

And then, the big event had happened. One day in late November of 1958, Emmett had come home from work, and found Marty once too many sitting in front of his window and playing the guitar, enabling every fifties citizen around to hear the clearly futuristic music. Now getting over-annoyed and furious, the inventor took the instrument out of his friend's hands, hit it a few times against the wall, broke it almost in two parts and threw it out of the window.

The loud yell that had sounded through the street a moment later made it clear that this wasn't one of Emmett's brightest ideas ever. As Emmett and Marty headed down in a rush, they found out that the person who made that yell had had the guitar land on his foot, and after a trip to the hospital it turned out the man, Cedric J. Robinson, wasn't going to be let out for another three weeks. Cedric then worried about the party he was going to host the next Tuesday, December second. Emmett volunteered to host it instead, figuring that if he didn't do that, he'd change history, as Cedric had never been supposed to be hit, and also thinking that not much would happen on a party like that which would alter the universe. He couldn't have been more wrong.

On the party, Emmett had been needed to rescue a young girl who'd fallen down a cliff and was just holding onto an edge down below, as he was the host. The inventor managed to get the woman up at the last moment, and once he looked into her eyes, every hope on not skewing history was over – it was love at first sight.

The scientist could not keep his promise to himself to not change history, and figuring the woman, Julia Clayton, would've fallen down anyway, he married her on February twentieth of 1959, giving Marty freedom to go out more, since he himself was skewing history, too. Their friendship improved again, up until November twelfth of the same year, where, at a party, Marty met the cousin of Jennifer's father Robert, called Mary Parker, who looked like Jennifer. Marty wanted to marry her, and after many persuading, Emmett finally gave him a six-month-deadline – if he still loved Mary then, he could marry, if he didn't, he should let her go.

The twenty-one-year-old hit the deadline easily, and in the meantime, something else had happened. On the instant the sixties began on January first 1960, Julia had given birth to Jules Eratosthenes Brown, and on October twenty-ninth 1961 to Verne Newton Brown. On November 12, 1960, Marty and Mary had married, while on the same wedding, George had proposed to Lorraine. Both things went rather easily, and at the beginning of 1962, everything seemed perfect with the world, especially with Lorraine expecting, which was announced a few weeks into January.

But disaster hit unexpectedly. On the night of Wednesday August 1st to Thursday August the second, the Brown and Klein families were just able to escape when the mansion went up in flames due to an experiment gone wrong in the basement a day before. Emmett had been horrified, but relieved when Marty told him this was supposed to have happened anyway. Still, they didn't have a home anymore, and the inventor had figured that fitting all of them in the garage wasn't going to work. After all, there were six of them, and also Copernicus, the dog.

Doc interrupted at this point. "Copernicus died in the fire" he said. "I still remember how much I cried, then."

"This time, apparently, Marty altered things about that" Emmett said, smiling. "Actually, he was the one to drag the letter he'd written to me and Copernicus out of the house, after helping his wife, Mary, get to safety in the garage."

Old Marty then continued to tell about how he'd managed to get a smallish house in Lyon Estates, but didn't feel comfortable in it. He sold it again, lived with his teenaged parents for a while, moved into the garage again and finally, in 1965, Emmett agreed with buying their current house. He quit his work at the university in 1967, and in the year before, Jennifer Julia Klein was born to Marty and Mary. In 1968, shortly after the birth of 'new' Marty McFly, it was time for Calvin Emmett Klein to enter the world.

From then on, Marty felt himself having a pretty cool life, even if he was stranded years into the (to him) far, far past. He had a wife, and two children, and a best friend, along with the fact that he was good friends with his future parents. In October 1975, young, new Marty finally got around to meeting the older inventor, and developed a friendship, as well as with the older Marty, who, unbeknownst to him, was himself. Also, young Marty became good friends with Calvin Junior and Jennifer Klein.

In 1980, as Jules and Verne both were in college, Emmett announced some news: he was going to work on an extra time machine, the remains of the first helping with that. "This way" the inventor had said, "we'll be able to finish another time machine shortly after the first, and we'll be able to travel to the future, after all, which my original self intended to do."

Old Marty, twenty-five years after the original time machine accident that stranded him in the fifties, had been hesitant, but eventually volunteered to help. The next years were spent in the lab much, working on either of the time machines. Not one, but two DeLorean's were bought in 1981, which they could afford due Julia working as a university English teacher. The hard moment for Old Marty, however, came in 1982, when Young Marty McFly met Jennifer Parker.

The moment Marty saw his girlfriend again, memories came back of the time she was his girl, twenty-seven years earlier, and seeing his younger self so happy with her and knowing that the marriage plans they had would never came true hurt a lot, so much that the older version of the teenager almost considered turning to a councillor. Doc eventually managed to convince him not to do that, and he volunteered, however still feeling sad.

The final years of the three decades passed slowly, but finally on August twenty-third 1985, Emmett finished the first time machine. In early October, he contacted the Libyans, having bought a bullet-proof vest a long time ago, and started building on the fake bomb. Doc got the plutonium on October twenty-one, and then fled to Grass Valley for a few days, trusting Old Marty to protect the Brown family from the terrorists.

The last days were as hard as all the others, but Marty managed to keep himself calm, even after repeated visits from his younger self, who was concerned about Emmett. On October twenty-fifth, he spoke to the inventor for a few hours before the latter headed to the mall, where Marty appeared on 1:34, just in time to see the time machine and himself vanish back to 1955.

Life got better after this day. As the commotion on young Marty being 'missing' calmed down, Old Marty brought out some songs, and Calvin Junior got to be good friends with Jennifer – and more than that. On October 26 of 1986, the new time machine was finished, Emmett and Old Marty headed to the future, and found out things happened to Calvin Junior in a way they too had happened to original 2015 Marty McFly from the world the visitors were native to. Old Marty warned his son about the race with Needles, and when Emmett took Jennifer and Calvin Junior to the future during the same day, he found no wimp Calvin III who was getting in a confrontation with Griff, instead a confident Calvin III who got Griff to be arrested. Emmett then confronted his best friend about this, and after a brief chat, he finally realized that it was good this way.

In November, Old Marty and Emmett then finally told the truth to George and Lorraine, taking the McFly couple back to '56 to prove it. After a fainting scene with young Lorraine, whose memory was wiped of the incident, they headed back to 1986 with a now knowing George and Lorraine.

"… and so the story of what led up to today ends" Old Marty then finished, smiling. "Any questions will be answered as soon as they're asked."

"Is that supposed to be sarcastic?" Marty asked.

"Maybe" Old Marty said. "It's just if you consider this to be sarcastic."

"Not really" Marty muttered. He now looked at his counterpart with fascination. "I still can't believe you actually managed to survive" he said. "How did you stand being without rock and roll music and other '80s things? Or are you really that different from me that you blended in easily…"

Emmett was the one to answer this question. "Not as far as I've observed you" he said. "You look to me a lot like Marty was, when I first met up with him back in 1955. Of course, I've only seen you for twenty minutes, tops, not counting the time you were asleep, but I don't think you're so different. Marty basically burst into tears the instant I told him about his return being no more possible. I would've tried everything to get him home, hadn't the time machine been so much destroyed that there was no possibility to rebuild it anymore, not even in a decade, and that's when you ignore the still needed plutonium…"

"I see" Visiting Marty said. He looked at his counterpart. "You were lucky that you had your folks and Emmett around."

"Yup, definitely" the local said, nodding. "I would've gone mad if I'd just been stranded there without anyone familiar to help me. I managed to keep on going thanks to Mom and Dad, and Emmett, whom I've come to consider like my Dad."

"Which is a good thing" George chuckled, nodding, "as I'm definitely not feeling up to being the paternal role model of someone who's just two months younger than I! It's so weird that I saw you as a high school friend all the time, but that you really are my son. It's unbelievable." He turned to the visiting version of his youngest child. "At least you do look like Marty" he said, a trace of nostalgia and sadness in his voice. "With you here, it's like… like Marty never left…"

"Which I didn't" Old Marty interrupted. "I've been here all the time."

George shot his old son a look. "I know, but it isn't the same, you know?" he said. "You're in your late forties. You're our age. You're not as energetic and youthful as you once were. And you don't really feel like our child, anymore. Your counterpart here, however, is the correct age of missing Marty… oh man, I can't believe it's been two-and-a-half years…"

"You can always ask Do-Emmett to take you on a ride back to '58" Old Marty said. "You can see the younger me there."

"And not be able to talk to him, meet him, or even watch him from too close because it could possibly screw up history" George muttered, frustrated. "I want to see you again for real, and not just from a distance. This Marty feels more like my son than you've ever done during those thirty-three years, even including the last two in which we knew of your secret."

"Thanks, I guess" Marty muttered.

At that moment, the time travellers heard a sound coming from the back door. Within a few moments, Calvin Klein Junior entered the room – and immediately froze to a halt once he noticed that there was another person who looked like him there. "Holy shit" he whispered, barely able to breathe. "Calvin III?"

"His eyes are blue" Emmett corrected, drawing him to CJ's attention, as well as the fact that Doc was there, too. "But it's understandable that you mistook him for your future son – I did, too." He looked at Calvin. "You're early. I suppose you wanted to drop by and say hi to your Dad?"

"Yeah, how did you know?" Calvin Junior asked.

"Because that's what he figured out when Doc and I showed up at his door, before he realized who we really were – with some help from Doc showing up next to me to confirm my story" Visiting Marty said, standing up and extending his hand. "Hi, Calvin Junior, nice to meet you. I'm the Marty McFly from another dimension… one in which he _did_ return to 1985 right away."

Calvin's mouth opened and shut again in complete disbelief. "No way" he muttered, astonished.

"I'm afraid it is happening, Calvin" Emmett said, his words reminding the visitor of what his Doc had said, back at Oak Park Cemetery in that horrific 1985 that Biff had created on their trip-gone-wrong to the future. "I'd never expected this, but it's true. It appears to be that lightning did not hit that branch, so Marty – your father's counterpart – made it home. He managed to save me, somehow, although how he did it goes beyond me, as it was your father who stopped me from throwing away those parts of the letter."

"I just got attached to it" Doc said. "I didn't want to lose one of the things that Marty, my friend-to-be, had left behind, so I couldn't just throw it away. And as the memories of that video of the first experiment kept coming to me, I finally gave in and taped it up, wondering what on earth could be wrong with my future. That it could be something like this, I'd never thought."

"I was actually there to convince him in the final timeline" Visiting Marty explained. "I mean, after we went back to get an almanac away from Biff. I told him not to throw away the letter, and almost forced him to read it." The teen blushed.

"Well, I have to thank you for that" Doc said. "If not for that, you would've never been able to save my life, and I'd have died on the parking lot of Lone Pine Mall. Now that would've altered history, and most likely caused a life-ending time paradox."

"Like usual" Marty said, smirking just a little.

"Like usual."

"So?" Emmett said. "We've compared our stories… and it's already eight-thirty. I don't want to push you into something, but you did wake up Marty saying that you were going to leave…"

"You're right" Doc said, standing up. "But before we leave… would you like to have a look at our time machine? Maybe it would inspire you, if you ever want a bigger machine besides the DeLorean…"

"For the few trips we take, the DeLorean is enough" Emmett said. "But you're right – it can come in handy if there was anyone to be trapped in the past. We know how bad that can get from Marty's own experience when being sent back to 1955."

"Which I do not want to be remembered of too much, thank you very much" the forty-nine-year-old groaned.

"Sorry" the local apologized. "Anyway, you've got a good idea, uh, Doc." Emmett smiled. "I'd love to see the time bus."

* * * *

The time travelling bus Dr. Emmett Brown, Trilogy world native, showed his counterpart was everything Emmett had expected of it and then some. He gawked at the space, and at Doc showing him how he could voice-command the time circuits easily, trying it himself, too. Apparently, their voices matched enough for it to work. After a long demonstration of how everything worked, it was almost nine when Emmett, Calvin Jr, George, Lorraine and Old Marty finally got off the bus, and watched as the bus lifted up from the street and started flying off.

"So, where are we going now?" Marty asked, once they'd flown away some distance of the locals. "Back home, to our '88?"

"I suppose so" Doc said, sighing. "You know, I would've liked to see a bit more of the other worlds that are all out there, but we can't go on forever – and it is about nine, now. We'd better return home right away, and get you home so you can eat your dinner – I'm sure that you're hungry – and spend an hour or two, maybe three, thinking this over before falling asleep."

"Are you sure Mom and Dad won't think it is strange, me going to bed so early?" Marty asked.

"I can tell them you did, fully cooperative, participate in a very exhausting lab incident" Doc said. "That should be able to cover you just fine. I'm sure that your biological clock has been out of whack more than just this at least a few times."

"Right" the teenager muttered. He whistled, looking around, as they peacefully flew over the alternative version of Hill Valley. "You know, I think I kind of liked visiting other versions of home" he said. "It gives you a whole new perspective on things. Maybe, in a few weeks, we can try this again."

"I'm sure we can" Doc said. "I'd like to put the bus to rest for a while, though. We don't want to over-use it, and actually end up in the wrong dimension."

"Is that even possible?" Marty asked, getting a little scared.

"Theoretically, yes" Doc nodded. "But I think the chance of something like that happening is really small. It could still happen, so that's why I'm taking precautions to make sure it isn't over-used."

"You're the Doc, Doc."

The inventor grinned. "You know, I've got the feeling I've heard you say that before sometime today."

"Yeah, right" the teenager muttered, yet smiling. "I suppose it was cool and all, seeing other Hill Valley's, but we do have to leave sometime." He focused on staring in front of himself, wondering if Doc was going to speed up the time machine soon.

He was. Just about then, the time machine had reached Clayton Ravine. Doc looked down for a moment. "You know, it's real sad to think that Clara died in this world, over 102 years ago." He looked down to see if he could spot his wife's skeleton, then figured out that he was thinking silly – like they had in the original timeline of his world, the body had probably been taken away and buried somewhere. He held back a sigh, then moved the train downwards.

Marty blinked, as they approached the floor of the canyon. "What are you doing?" he asked.

In response, Doc pointed at the Mr. Fusion energy chamber, which was flashing a yellow 'Near Empty' sign. "We don't have enough trash anymore" he explained. "There is some, but not enough to collect two point forty-two gigawatt's of energy from. It would get us up to zero point five, zero point six at most."

"Right" the teen said, nodding, as the bus slowly landed on the ground. Doc opened the door, then turned to his friend. "You can stay here, if you'd prefer that" he said. "This doesn't have to take more than a few minutes."

"Well, I might keep you on that offer" Marty said. "I feel up to relaxing, now, and thinking about all what we've seen. It was really cool, you know, but still scary. But I'd like to do this again."

"Precisely." The scientist exited the bus, and searched through the fields for something that he could use to fuel up the Fusion generator. After a few moments, he found some dead leaves. Holding that tight, he managed to find some grass that had died out, and – surprisingly – a rusty old beer can. _Wonder if that still suits the Fusion generator after all the time it's been here? Better collect some more trash. _After collecting even more dead leaves and as surprising as the beer can some paperwork, dated January 26th of 1984, the inventor headed back to the bus, and stuffed everything into the generator through the barrel, which was designed for just that purpose. Making sure it fit – the last leaves could just barely fit inside the generator – he got inside and checked the fuel chamber, which now displayed it was completely full. That was more than enough, as only an eighth of 'full' was needed for the trip to generate the necessary 2.42 gigawatt's. It was fine, now.

"You succeeded?" Marty asked, still sitting in the same spot as before.

Doc nodded. "I believe so, yes. There is more than enough to provide energy for our trip, so we should be fine. He turned to the front, and switched the flying circuits back on. The bus lifted up, and the wheels returned to 'side-mode', as the inventor jokingly called it. He then flew the bus up through the dark sky, up to above the ravine, and stopped it again for a moment to focus on the Destination only.

"Time, destination and dimensional circuits on" he instructed. "Input Destination: Saturday, April 2, 1988, let's see, not too long after our departure but not short enough to attract any unwanted attention… I really have to modify this thing so those sonic booms can be unheard and the train itself invisible… 12:25 PM, Hill Valley, California, specified location Eastwood Ravine, PF #50." He stepped back and waited for a moment for the time machine to register that information, watched as the new red destinations filled in their places in the time circuits control display.

"We're going?" Marty asked.

"Exactly" Doc confirmed, then looked at the Present. "Great Scott, it's nine-seventeen. Well, at least we had a nice day… like the computer said we would." He smirked, then looked up, now for the first time noticing how dark it had become. "Well, Marty… brace yourself for temporal displacement, as well as change from almost no light at all to a sky as bright as it was when we first left our home – maybe even a little brighter, as it could've brightened up a bit in those ten minutes. Then again, that probably wouldn't have made a noticeable difference, especially when the difference between twelve-twenty-five and the current time are far more obvious."

"Right" Marty muttered.

Doc focused on the time circuits. "All right, time circuits on, flux capacitor fluxing, let's go!" He pressed onto the gas pedal, and smiled as the bus soon started to move through the dark sky, fast. "Fifty" he reported. "Sixty, seventy, eighty… eighty-five, eighty-six, eighty-seven… eighty-eight!"

There was a bright flash of light and a sonic boom, as the bus rapidly moved through the wormhole that had been created in front of it. As the light didn't clear up, Doc blinked a few times, then slowed the vehicle down. "Home sweet home" he said, smiling at Marty and the Present displays, which now matched the Destination ones. "You know, you were right about this being really interesting. But I'm still convinced that it's good we're home now."

"I agree" Marty said. "I can't wait to have dinner."

"I bet Clara can't, either, as she must be worried again" Doc joked. "That said, we'd better turn around, before she gets really mad with me." He turned the bus around, and easily moved it through the light sky up towards their home.

It took just a few minutes for them to reach the old Brown house, which had been built there years ago but hadn't been lived in for ages. Marty relaxed a bit as he leaned backwards, fully expecting Doc to slow down and land…

But he didn't not expect a high-pitched scream, and suddenly being almost thrown forwards (he could've flown through the window if he hadn't thought to put on his seatbelt) as the bus slowed down from fifty to zero in less than a second as the inventor hit the brakes, hard. Before Marty knew it, he felt himself leaning out of his seat, breathing deep for air as the belt was almost into his stomach. "Holy shit" he breathed.

It took a few moments for Marty to crawl back to his seat – it took him almost a minute before he could say another world. "Doc!" he stammered, looking pale. "What happened!" Seeing there was no response, Marty unbuckled and, worried now, moved over to his friend, who was sitting next to him. "Doc, Doc, what's the matter!"

The scientist, who looked even whiter than Marty, pointed out of the window, down below. And when Marty saw what exactly was up, he felt like he would've done the exact same as Doc did, had he been in a similar situation.

The Brown house had simply vanished without a trace. All of the property was just empty fields, and it didn't look like anything had been there for a long time.

"Great Scott!" the teenager uttered, not caring it wasn't his usual catchphrase. Whatever this meant, it did _not_ look good.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: See Chapter Three. **

**Author's Note: **This is a long one. Well, they all are long, but once you've read this one, you most likely won't have the energy to read Chapter Five anymore. Hopefully, you do have the energy to review, which I would really appreciate. I didn't type over 18000 words for nothing.

Well, as I said most of the things in Chapter Three, let's get on with the story. Enjoy the chapter!

**Chapter ****Four**

Saturday, April 2, 1988  
12:43 P.M.  
Hill Valley, California

"Doc, what the heck _is_ this?"

Doc looked at Marty, breathed for a few seconds deep, then spoke for the very first time after his shock had happened, the instant he recognized his surroundings. "This… this is a field, Marty."

"I know that" Marty muttered. "What I want to know is why there is no house on it."

"That's what I am wondering, myself" Doc said, making sure he'd gotten the wrong house and was not mistaken. Nope – this was the place his house was on all right. The surroundings were all right. That, however, meant they were not home.

"And you've got any idea, already?" Marty asked. "About why that house is not there?"

Doc didn't. "No" he admitted. "It should work – we're in the right dimension now. All that I can think of is that I typed something the wrong way… no, then the dimensional circuits simply wouldn't have it go through." He stared at the circuitry intensely, then at the DFSCUPCIF, and then back at the dimension circuits. "It could be a glitch, of course…" He looked up. "Security monitors, test internal and external functions. Sections: All. Style of process: Really carefully." He looked at it. "Should be ready in just a few minutes. This style of process takes longer than the other one, just carefully, but this one is far more efficient. We'll just have to wait a while."

Marty sighed, but did as Doc said and waited a while. After about three and a half minutes, the system beeped, and showed green screens everywhere. "Everything all right, as previous" the computer announced. "No glitches found. Have a nice day Doctor Brown."

"I wish I could have a nice day" Doc said, a bit sarcastically, looking down once again. "There's got to be something wrong with that thing. Where can we be?"

"April 2, 1988, 12:47 P.M., Hill Valley, California, PF #50" the computer announced. Being a machine, it had of course not realized it was not the thing Doc was talking to. "Otherwise known as 'Current settled time, place, and dimension'. Off by only eight hours and fifty-three minutes."

"I know that" the inventor growled. "The question is, how did we come here, and more importantly, how do we get out of here!"

"Maybe it was just a once in a time error" Marty said, still hoping for the best. "Everything was green, right? Then it's fine now. Maybe if you try to time travel again, we'd end up home."

Doc pondered that for a moment. "That might work. Computer, change time displays to April 2, 1988, 12:50 PM. Check Destination Dimension as PF #50." He then turned to the front, and hit the gas.

"We're going now, and here?" Marty asked, as the speed rapidly climbed. "I thought you didn't want to time travel in populated areas like this?"

"Not really, but we'll have to" Doc said, sighing. "I refuse to go through anything near that annoying trip from home to ravine to home again, while in fear if this will go right. If we're not home, I want to see that, right away, and not have to be worrying about that."

Marty could understand that, so he just leaned back as the bus accelerated up to 88, there was a flash of light, and then the vehicle lowered again. Doc looked out of the window, and could just stop himself from sighing. The house was back, but it looked just like it had before it had been bought by himself and Clara, back in '86. They still weren't home, yet.

"We didn't make it, did we?" Marty said, as a statement, not a question – it was obvious from the look on the older man's face. He slammed on the seat in frustration. "This is just so heavy… what the heck is going on?"

"To be honest, I don't know" Doc said. "But if this trip failed, it means that the diagnosis the computer made is obviously incorrect. So we'll have to see what exactly went wrong." He turned back to the computer. "Security monitors, test internal and external functions again. Make sure nothing is forgotten. Sections: All. Style of process: The most carefully you can do."

As the computer went to work, Marty looked at his friend, confused. "Why are ya doing that? You told me yourself you knew the diagnosis was incorrect."

"Maybe it will be correct now" Doc said, not giving the matter much chance himself, but at the same time not wanting to get Marty's hopes down.

It turned out that he had already. "Doc, you said yourself that you knew it couldn't be a once-in-a-time error!"

"It could be" Doc insisted, although he sincerely doubted that. "Just wait and see what the diagnosis of the functions are this time."

"Probably nothing real good" Marty muttered, leaning back. He knew that with Doc, that chance was really little when inspecting one of the time machines on a trip that had obviously gone wrong… again.

And he was proven right. Doc tested the time machine up to four times, but still got the annoying message that everything was okay. Finally, as he slammed his fist to the dashboard, Marty, having been rudely woken after dozing off for a moment, stepped up and walked to the inventor, who was just speaking in the information for a fifth test. "Doc" Marty whispered, quietly, but loud enough for the inventor to hear.

"Marty?" he asked, confused. "I thought you'd fallen asleep…"

"I had" the teenager simply said. "But I woke up again." He sighed. "Doc, this ain't going to make progress for us at all! You've been testing that stupid thing five times, including the one time in the previous world, and if nothing has showed up now, it means it ain't _gonna_ show up, Doc!"

The inventor sighed. "Marty…"

"You know it's the truth, Doc."

"Don't jump into any conclusions…"

"I'm not jumping into any conclusions" Marty said. "I'm just stating facts." He held out his left arm and watch for Doc to see. "See, Doc? Tell me, what time should we be at?"

"Ten-o-two P.M., Saturday, April second, 1988" Doc read aloud. "Why?"

Marty sighed. "I'm hungry, Doc. And I don't doubt you are, too. And since I told you this checking the functions is not going to help us at all, we'd better do something useful with our time, and go eat a bit." He anxiously rubbed his stomach, knowing that it was near-empty and desperate for food. "Doc, the bus won't go away, neither will our chances to get home shrink by doing this. If you really insist on keeping to do this, fine, but let's eat first. You can't work hard when distracted by an empty stomach, anyway."

"Actually, I hadn't noticed my hungry feelings, yet" Doc said. "But you do bring up a very good point. Also, if this is not going to help, we can get my local counterpart to maybe examine the time machine. If he knows something I don't… well, if it's going to take a long time to repair the bus, we need some place to stay, and to park the bus. I think my local counterpart's home might qualify fine."

"If he knows about how the DF-thing works" Marty reminded his friend.

"DFSCUPCIF" Doc corrected. "Yeah, that's a good point. We'll have to let my counterpart examine it, first – and if he knows how to fix it, and has the tools to do that, we'll stay. After all, I picked up at least seventy percent of the technology in the DFSCUPCIF that differs from the flux capacitor in the future. If my counterpart doesn't have a time machine, and a trip with this machine would transport us to a different dimension, we can't stay, as the local me would not have any means to fix the machine properly."

"That is a very good point" Marty admitted. "So I guess that, if the local you can't help fix the bus, we'll have to leave after dinner?"

"That's correct" Doc said. "I'd like to visit as many dimensions as we can, so that once we settle down for the night, it will hopefully be in a dimension in which the bus can actually be fixed. I don't think this will be a 24-hour-job, really. Do you?"

"Nope" Marty muttered, a bit stressed. "Have you got any idea when we will get home again?"

"I don't know" Doc said, sighing deeply. He stared in front of himself. "We'll have to find my other self – in order for any possibilities to be opened in that direction. That said, it's better not to hang out here any longer, and just head over to the Burger King. It's a food restaurant, after all, and my garage is right next to it. And if the restaurant isn't there, we'd see my mansion, which also should be lived in. Either way, it should give us a chance to get some food, as well as getting help to get back home again."

"That is a very good point" Marty said, nodding. "So, we'll swing over by the garage now?"

Doc simply nodded, and started accelerating. Marty sat backwards quietly, and didn't say anything as the bus headed over to the semi-house Doc had lived in for over two decades, while building his time machine from the leftovers of his electronics after the fire. Neither of them said a word as they drove – not flew, it would be too conspicuous – over to the place of the former Riverside Drive, now John F. Kennedy Drive. Doc pleasantly noticed the street was still called that way – something that made him more sure this was home, and at least assured him of the fact that this wasn't Biff's horrifying world. After all, the street was called 'Tannen Drive' in that world, named after Biff, for a reason that Biff had supposedly 'improved the world' with his nuclear waste dumps, something that completely went past the inventor, but he figured that was the way the people in that sick, twisted world reasoned, because A – denying that would mean execution for them by Biff's gang, or in special cases by Biff himself, or B – the waste in the air had already practically poisoned their brains. Neither of those scenarios was one that Doc could say he was really fond of.

As the inventor arrived next to his old home, he frowned. "Great Scott, that's weird" he muttered. "Marty, look. There's a 'FOR SALE' sign in front of the house. Seems to have been put there just recently."

Marty frowned. "But we sold the garage in '86… and you didn't live in the other house…"

"Maybe something has inspired me to live in a third, entirely different house, maybe I didn't invent time travel until 1987, or maybe I didn't invent time travel in the first place…" Doc thought the longest over the last possibility, then spoke. "Display map of Hill Valley, California, United States of America – current time. Kind of map: Detailed." He leaned back, as a map appeared on the screen above the time circuits display.

Marty looked astonished. "How'd you do that?" he asked. "I mean, we're in another dimension… aren't you supposed to not have that info available? We've never been in this world before!"

Doc smirked. "That's absolutely right" he said. "But this device has computer technology inside from the 2020s that don't need to care for the year. Once they hear 'current time' they'll pick up information from the nearest television satellite, use it to view the area, and display the info here in just matters of seconds. And don't stare at me with your mouth open, your tongue hanging out in a similar fashion, and your eyes looking like they can fall out any second."

"Um… sorry, Doc" Marty muttered. "Holy shit. This is heavy."

"I know it is for you" Doc said. "But in forty years… heck, most of it in twenty… this will be very, very common for all of Hill Valley. Anyway…" He turned back to the screen, and smiled. "This is what I was looking for. The locations." He tapped on the screen a few times, zoomed in on something by pressing a few buttons, then frowned. "Eastwood Ravine?" he asked, staring at the evidence the map gave, marking the bridge as 'Eastwood Ravine Bridge'. "Well, that writes off our last possibility. Still… even in that universe where we initially never got past that first trip, I bought that very house, so it's weird I didn't buy it here. We'll have to remember to ask about that, when… if we bump into ourselves." He looked to the left. "Well, let's grab a snack, first. After that, we can start worrying about the garage. Maybe we could get in, somehow… didn't you always continue to leave the key under the mat, even after I told you it might be a few months 'till I got back? Maybe it's still there." Those last two sentences were directed to Marty, who was staring at the map of Hill Valley with fascination, moving his eyes over the display rapidly as he absorbed all the familiar information.

The teen then blinked, as if just realizing he'd been spoken to. "Uh, yeah" he said. "I wanted to not lose the familiarity with being around you for those months, knowing you'd be back soon, so I kept the key there. When I picked it up, I always felt like you still lived in the garage, instead of being in 1894. When I entered, though, it hit me hard that you were not there." He winced, thinking back to that time.

Doc patted his friend's back. "It's okay, Marty" he said. "I'm here now, right?" He chuckled a bit. "Great Scott, I can't believe I ever considered staying in the past, or not moving until 1994… early 1995. Not only would the former possibly bring disastrous consequences to the space-time continuum, both of the options would leave you unhappy here, without me." He paused for a moment. "I suppose this must sound terribly selfish…"

"Not too much" Marty assured him. "And – heck, you're _right_. I did need you in my life – you've been my best friend since I was seven. I'd have gone mad if you hadn't been around." He then unbuckled his seatbelt, and pointed at the restaurant at the opposite side of the street. "Shall we, now?"

Doc frowned a little, then chuckled, smiled and nodded. "We shall" he said. He switched the time circuits off, then headed into the back. Before Marty thought to respond, he returned with the familiar briefcase from that second trip to 1955, in that first weekend. He then opened the case, and after allowing Marty to gawk at the inside for a moment, he picked a stack of billets labelled '1984' out of it, checked the amount, and stuffed nine/tenth of it back. "Thirty dollars" he said, proudly. "This will do. We're not in 2015 yet, so we won't have to deal with any inflation.

Marty had to suppress a smirk. "Doc, do you actually use that briefcase while visiting places in the Present Time?"

"Why not?" Doc asked, chuckling. "It deletes the need of a wallet."

Although Marty had to admit that part, he still found it to be strange. But he ignored that as Doc locked the briefcase, stuffed it back into the back of the bus, then came into the front again, exited together with the teen, and locked the door tightly. After doing that, they headed over to the Burger King, and entered the familiar restaurant.

Marty smiled a little, as he looked around. He hadn't been here for a while anymore, and saw that, in this universe, everything looked like he remembered it from his world. He followed Doc through the restaurant, and finally sat down on a few seats somewhere in the back, from where Doc had a wonderful view of the time bus. Intelligent, Marty figured. If it was about to get stolen, they could see it and most likely be there on time before the thief even figured out how to get the locks open.

As Doc went off to order their dinner, Marty thought back on all what had happened, and what they'd seen. There was a nice long rest in the morning, then waking up at 10:00 at Huey Lewis and the News singing through the radio. He'd gone down to eat breakfast, and had thought a little of what to do with the day, until Doc had called around 11am, and instructed him to come and see him within fifty minutes, as he had 'something interesting that you might want to see' in the lab. Marty had taken a shower, written a bit in his diary about going to see Doc, wrote a note to his folks, who were late to be back from tennis as Dave and Linda were out to their work/boyfriend, and around 11:20, he was on his way to the Brown house, which was five miles away.

Marty closed his eyes, as he remembered what had followed. Arriving in the lab to see Doc with his crazy new time bus… being showed the DFSCUPCIF, as he now remembered the thing's name was… and then, travelling to another world, a world in which Doc and Clara had gone right along with them, a world in which the ravine was called Brown Ravine and in which he had his future son for a twin to live with him. It had been a mad world to visit, but it was kind of interesting, still, and around that time, he'd kind of enjoyed himself, and considered it as exciting and fun to visit other dimensions as time travelling was – and most likely, this time around, they weren't able to alter anything either as they travelled to the present… another version of their present, of course, but still, it was their present.

Fun had ceased to be the description that very moment they had entered the second new world. Doc finding out his beloved wife had still fallen into the ravine and met that horrific fate, Marty finding out he'd been trapped in the fifties that first time around and had been forced to live all those years all over again… and sure, it wasn't him who he was seeing, and everything had turned out all right in the end, but the whole idea seemed horrifying to Marty… being trapped, a thirty years away from home… the explanations he'd been given still didn't make it clear to him how that his other self had actually survived in that world, and the thought of him marrying someone else than Jennifer, even if it was somewhat of a second cousin who looked alike, was enough to make him feel sick and request entry, not really feeling up to staring at his other self for too long.

He sighed. Things had really gotten even worse than they already were once it had happened, and they'd been stranded in this, this weird other world, while Doc had tapped in the right coordinates. This shouldn't have happened, Doc had told him, and whatever it meant, it probably meant that they were trapped to travel through dimensions for all eternity. And that was not a good foresight, so Marty did all he could to ignore those thoughts and focus on a positive one – that of finding a local Doc who could help them get out of this mess that they had apparently created, on a way none of them knew.

As Marty felt himself about to doze off, he looked at his watch and finding that he should be right to do just that, considering the time he was supposed to be in. It was ten-twenty P.M. now, and while normally, he wasn't that tired around a similar time, he did feel exhausted now, after all what had happened. "Why did you have to invent that stupid machine, Doc" he quietly muttered, more feeling frustrated than being really angry with his best friend. Time travelling was pretty much all right now – if they ended up being trapped, all they had to do was wait 'till Clara came with the other machine to get them as they'd turned up missing. But this was different. Travelling through other worlds was putting a whole new perspective to things – neither the DeLorean or the train were converted for dimensional travelling purposes, and even if Jules or Clara managed to fix that problem, they could end up as stuck between worlds as the inventor and teen themselves were. They had to keep on hopping 'till they'd hit the jackpot, the right version of Doc with the right set of tools to help them fix this stupid mess they'd gotten into.

And, to the then very-exhausted and hungry nineteen-year-and-almost-ten-months-old, that moment could better come sooner than later.

As he was pondering those thoughts, Doc showed up, carrying a plate with what resembled chips dinner with some snacks. The scientist set the plate down without speaking a word, passed the parts the teenager was supposed to eat to Marty, and then sat down himself and started eating, chewing the bits of food quietly. After a few moments of staring at his friend, Marty decided to do the same, and soon, both of them were busy eating and apparently didn't care to talk or do anything else. What was there to talk, anyway? Marty figured that, 'till the moment they would meet the Doc-who-could-help-them, they wouldn't get anywhere, and if they weren't meeting that guy now, why waste time by not eating? That's what, apparently, both of them figured, and so, they quietly continued eating for about twenty minutes, just sitting there, and continuing to ponder the things they had already seen, the things they saw, or, which was supposed to be very interesting, the things they had yet to see.

As for Marty, he hoped that what they were going to see next was just one thing – or, more accurately, one person – Doc, an alternate yet familiar Doc, one who knew enough about time travel and other dimensions and technology for visiting those to match his counterpart's intelligence in those subjects, or, which was even better, outnumber that. A Doc who could figure out just how the time machine had gone haywire, and, more important, how it was going to be fixed. A Doc who could get them home, and, preferably, could get them home fast.

For Docs, things were laying different. Sure, the inventor wanted to get home, to see Clara, Jules, Verne and little Martin again, at the exact ages they were supposed to be. He didn't want to be stuck travelling through other, unfamiliar worlds forever, and he didn't want to be going in a path that seemed to bring them further away from home every time. The first reality had still included almost all of the events in that first weekend, except for the fact that MJ was with them and they'd travelled to 1985 right away with the DeLorean. The second reality had gone on a different path, with Marty's return to 1985 on that very first trip failing and stranding them in the past. In this reality, their house wasn't even being lived in. If every hop through worlds was bringing them farther and farther away from home, why should he even go on with this any longer? Why should he even like the experience, at all?

Yet, he was sort of enjoying the sensation. Because there was still a tiny little part in the scientist that continued to be fascinated by these things. Doctor Emmett Brown was pushing eighty – his actual age was somewhere around seventy-eight, a decade older than the rest of the world thought, who figured he'd just turned 68 last month… ten days ago, actually – but he still was up to date, ahead of his time actually, and he would be even without that rejuvenation he got two-and-a-half years ago… (or was it twelve-and-a-half years? Who knew…) and somewhat frequent visits to the future, which was, while not exactly accurate because of it being in flux, pretty reassuring. The future wasn't set in stone, but it was a pretty good drawing of what the future was going to be, and, for him, that meant he wasn't going to stop being like this anytime soon. While not looking up details about his own personal life, he'd found himself in January 2053 a few months ago his time, and, upon closer investigation, the local was, however in his early hundred-and-forties, still alive and well, and didn't appear to be going to die any time soon. Local Emmett had been retired, apparently, and lived in a huge mansion off an amount of money he'd apparently gained sometime between 1988 and 2053… 2012, actually, which was the time Future Doc had stopped working – a few years past his official ninetieth, and his actual hundredth birthday, which almost matched now. Anyway, his future self was still happy and energetic, and so was he. And that was the reason he could still produce the excitement after finding out about yourself in other worlds. Sure, they weren't all perfect, but they didn't have to be. Just the excitement of a dimensional trip made him feel happy, and he soon slightly punished himself internally for hoping that, however not forever, these trips were going to go on for some more time, so that he could visit more worlds.

As they continued thinking like that, the meal was quickly finished. It was around one-fifty-nine P.M. – local time – when they finished up everything. As Marty felt satisfied and was about to relax, _it _happened.

As Doc and Marty were about to sit up, they suddenly saw a light lighting up the sky, brighter than the daylight, simultaneously with a loud sonic boom which almost made their hair rise up right, even though they were inside. Another flash of light and a sonic boom followed within seconds afterwards. As, after a similar time span, a third sonic boom sounded with it's flash of light, Doc and Marty just opened the door to exit, having figured out what it was, and being thankful to themselves for having already paid for the meal a minute earlier, so they could be the first ones out to see the arrival.

A train emerged from the interdimensional hole, one that Doc immediately recognized as his own – or at least, it looked like that when first spotting it. When he paid more attention, however, the scientist could clearly see sun panels on top of it, and there seemed to be something off with the gas pipe. Still, it looked pretty much the same, and the inventor gestured for Marty to run after the train as it moved down to the ground to land.

Doc found himself being able to go faster than Marty soon. While he pretty much kept up with the train, which was rapidly slowing down and moved downwards to the land behind the garage, which previously was owned by the inventor as it was part of the land his mansion stood on – he'd kept some of the ground, at least – Marty didn't keep up with it, and soon was behind. So, it was Doc who was the first one to approach the train as it had landed, then stopped about a dozen feet away from it, watching the vehicle to see what was going to happen.

As Doc watched, the train cab doors opened, to reveal his interdimensional counterpart – local Doc. The local inventor looked around curiously, then got back into the cab, calling out something Doc wasn't able to hear because by then, Marty caught up with him, puffing loudly. The scientist ignored Marty, and looked at the train, and, more specifically, at his other self, who now returned, along with…

Doc gasped and took a deep breath, as he easily recognized the person who accompanied the local Emmett Brown. The man was apparently late-thirties, but looked like he was a few years younger. His clothing was some kind of a 1920s/futuristic mix-up, combining some parts of the Prohibition period with the things Doc himself had seen in the future, and appeared to be 'in' around the time in the future Doc had last visited, 2053, however the style was around that time starting to get old already. Also, the person was wearing a 1950s cap, as well as a scientific white cape. But the face, that faintly remembered Doc of Clara with the eyes, but otherwise completely of himself, made it crystal clear who this was – Doc remembered him, having seen the local, or at least his counterpart, on his visit to 2017, which had taken place somewhere in '87. This person was none other than his very own son, Jules Eratosthenes Brown!

"Jules!" Doc whispered, completely stunned. What on earth was Jules doing in 1988? He was supposed to be no older than ten during this year, going on eleven! How on earth could he be thirty-nine?

Immediately, Doc scolded himself for being so irrationally. It was obvious – Jules had come on a time trip, most likely from the future, judging from the local's clothes. But why was he here now? Curious to find out, Doc continued to hide as the locals walked up to the garage-that-was-supposed-to-be-plowed-down-in-1986, and then tapped on Marty's shoulder in order to get the teen's attention.

"I'll go see what they're going to do" he whispered, increasing the volume of his voice at the end as he realized that the need to whisper had just gone inside. "I'll knock on the door this time – even if my counterpart faints, this Jules shouldn't. If he's as old as I think he is, and if he's going for the same scientific career as in our world, he should be able to tell us what this world is like, and maybe entertain us 'till the other him wakes up with his stories, from which we should be able to judge if other me is capable of helping us fix the bus."

Marty nodded. "What if they both faint?" he asked. "I mean, what if this is Local Jules' first time trip and he has never seen you on two places before? We're gonna be in serious trouble then, as well, having to wait 'till they wake up."

Doc wasn't thrown off his course that easy. "If this universe is anything like ours, I still have smelling salts around in the garage" he simply said. "They should be able to wake up one of them easily, if not both. Or else, we'll just throw water over their faces. That should be able to do the trick as well."

Marty still wasn't feeling entirely convinced. "Why should we risk that?" he said, his voice making clear that he wanted to do anything if it would get them home sooner. "Why can't I go? It went fine the last times, so why shouldn't it now?"

Doc shrugged. "Well, I've never tried this before" he simply said. "I think it's time for a change. You follow me, though – if either of us faints, you can catch him. I shouldn't faint, I've seen myself before, but I suppose it would be interesting to see my other, local self's reaction to this phenomenon. If he's more prone to fainting because he has seen few counterparts before, I could maybe take that as help in order to draw some kind of fainting scale, with me establishing how many encounters are needed and what kind to completely remove any reactions to the system upon seeing another version of yourself." He whistled, fascinated. "But now, I'm off. You go after me and catch Other Me if Jules isn't able to." He ran off without saying another word to his friend.

Marty sighed deeply, considered his options, and finally decided to run after his friend after all. Within a few moments, they'd reached the door, and, as Marty had slid into position a few feet from the door, Doc firmly knocked on it, stepped back so his other self wouldn't smack the door into his face, and waited.

The first thing Marty was able to see from Emmett was the frown he obviously carried. That frown, however, turned into a huge gasp as he saw who was standing in front of the doorway. There was a soft "Great Scott" and Marty recognized his cue as the local's eyes started to shake a bit and the inventor leaned backwards. The teen ran over to his other-friend, and caught him from the back. "Doc" he said, not wanting to surprise the inventor even more than his Doc already had by making the scientist think there was a stranger helping him. "Doc, it's me." He paused a moment, wondering what he should say, then figuring he'd better be honest – that was his intention for starting this semi-conversation anyway. "Marty" he said, making sure that his words were caught and understood by Emmett.

Luckily, Emmett did not faint, instead turned around, and started to shift his eyes from Marty to Doc and back so fast that Marty was feeling like he was about to faint. Finally, Emmett focused on Doc. "You're me!" he said, repeating the things that his previous selves had already said in the other dimensions.

Marty sighed, wondering if this was ever going to end. "No, he's not" he simply stated. "He's you all right, but he's from another universe."

While Doc winced at his friend's not-so-comforting straight-to-the-point approach, Emmett frowned. "Another universe?" he asked, confused. "I've heard of them, but… are you telling me that you really are from one, and that you somehow managed to rig up your own system in order to get here?" As Doc nodded, his counterpart whistled. "Amazing."

"More to the point, horrifying" Marty put in. "We've been stuck hopping through worlds for a long time now. You know that yours is actually the fourth dimension we visit?" He chuckled a bit, realizing the connection with the actual four dimensions that were known to him prior to today. "For the first two, we hopped intentionally, but when we tried to get back home an hour and a half ago, things went wrong. And before we knew it, we were trapped in another world, and Doc ran four tests on his computer in the time machine… it's a new one, a bus that he apparently converted into a time machine for this purpose… but, anyway, after Doc ran those tests, the computer still said we were all right, which we obviously aren't, as you are here, and Doc's house, which is out in the fields, you know, that old house five miles outta town in the middle of the Hill Valley Forest Preservation, is abandoned."

"Marty" Doc warned, finding his younger friend to be more annoying than helpful this dimension. They needed help all right, but Marty was a bit too straight-to-the-point.

Marty looked at his friend with a look that made clear that he didn't care whatever the inventor's reasons were for stopping him. "What?" he called out. "We need to go home Doc, and if this you can help us, I'd rather find out sooner than later, and the only way to do that is actually telling him what is going on."

"Yeah, but that doesn't have to be that immediate" Doc protested. "You should've given him time to calm down and accept the fact that we're here in the first place first, and then, we can tell him our problem."

Emmett, in the meantime, had thought over the words that the visiting Marty had said. "You mean," he finally said, interrupting the conversation between his other self and Marty, "that you," that was directed at Doc, "are living here in 1988?"

"In the other 1988, yes" Doc said, nodding. "Aren't you?"

Emmett didn't answer, just looked at Doc intensively. When he did open his mouth and spoke, it was a question, not an answer. "How old are you?"

Doc, a bit startled, did a step back. "Um… seventy-seven, most likely closer to seventy-eight" he said. "Moved from 1985 to 1885, and then from 1895 to 1986… why are you looking at me so strangely?"

"Because that never happened" Emmett said. "Not here, anyway. I did go to 1885 and spent nine years building the time train, but then I-"

And that was just how far he came. At that moment, Jules, who'd been inside all the time, dared a peek outside, and gasped at the alternate versions of his father and Marty. "Great Scott!" he gasped, his voice sounding almost exactly like his Dad's. "Father, what happened? How can these people be here?"

It was just one tiny little word, but Doc picked it up right away. _Father. _This version of Jules didn't call the scientist 'Dad', like, after their time trip to 2019 and 1985, Doc had taught him to do, telling him that it was common for all kids of Jules' age in the future – and in 1894 actually as well, which by that time still was their present. But here he still said father. Why would Emmett have neglected to change that little detail when it was going to be needed to change upon their move to the future?

Doc ignored his own thoughts, instead focused on the very confused version of Doctor Emmett Brown. "Well," Emmett said, his voice making clear he was unsure how to bring this, "these people are Marty and I from some other world. In their time machine, they've apparently added the ability to bring them from world to world like we can hop from time to time. My other self and Marty are apparently here to request my help with fixing their time machine."

Jules frowned. "They're from 1988?" he asked, curiously. "From now?"

Emmett nodded. "Yes, it certainly appears to be so. We shall go into further details later." He turned to the visitors. "You can come in, if you like. It's not much of a home, but it is something. Marty – my Marty – has not sold it yet, as he's going to do this summer."

Marty frowned, wondering how the local knew that particular piece of information was going to happen, then shrugged it off and followed Emmett into the garage, causing himself to gasp at the familiar surroundings. It had been some time, after all, since he'd seen the garage – the place was currently in their world being turned into an apartment. It'd been two years since the garage was destroyed, and Marty gasped at seeing it back in original shape.

"Wow" he muttered, as he and Doc were led to sit down on the chairs. "This is heavy…"

Jules gave an expected reaction. "Heavy?" he asked, obviously confused. "There is no reason for you to assume that your chair is in any way heavier than the others. It should be equal in weight and things like that. Do you want me to test it by lifting both of them and compare their weights?"

Both inventor's laughed, and Emmett explained to Jules that Marty had not quite meant this literally. "Although, what's so 'heavy' in this situation goes beyond me" the local concluded.

"That's why I wanted to talk to you" Doc said. "We need to compare our worlds if we want to find out what exactly made your world be different from mine."

"Go ahead" Emmett said, graciously.

His offer was accepted, and Doc was just about to say something when they heard something at the door. As everyone looked at it, Marty sighed. "I'll go get it" he said, figuring he didn't have anything better to do anyway. He stood up and walked to the door to open it, wondering who might be wanting to enter the inventor's home, forgetting for a moment that if this was an ordinary native, he or she would be very surprised to see both Doc and Emmett being there.

But it was not, because as Marty opened the door, he stared into a face that was undoubtedly his own. "Holy shit!" he breathed, staring at his counterpart.

Local Marty's eyes went wide in the same recognition and surprise. For a moment, Visiting Marty saw him shake again and, figuring he'd be early to prevent this repetition of what almost went wrong last time, he reached out and caught, well, himself, grabbing his counterpart tight by the back and shoulders.

The feeling of being touched by himself sent shivers through Local Marty's stomach that brought him back to the land of the living after being near-unconscious for a moment, although Visiting Marty could hear his other self's heartbeat was very, very fast. "Holy shit!" the local repeated, and stared at his own blue eyes in a way of both recognition and terror at the phenomenon he was seeing.

"Hi" the visitor simply said, figuring he should say something. "I'm you. Nice to meet you." He figured those words were stupid words to tell, but, still, he was very new to this kind of situation. It wasn't like he'd met an interdimensional version of himself many times before – and it looked like this him hadn't, at all.

"Um… hi me" the local said, only then noticing Doc was there, too – two of him, actually. "Doc?" he asked, confused. "You're back?"

Emmett sighed, uncomfortably. "No" he admitted. "Marty, you should never have seen this – my intention was just to clean up the garage, not let you see me. That way, you should continue to live your life the way I saw you living it in the future, which is my current home."

"You live in the future?" both Doc and the Marty's asked, simultaneously. Then, Doc said: "How did that come to be?"

"Perhaps you could tell me how you came to be first" Local Marty said. "I'm very curious to the story that my Doc has to tell, but I want to know where you're from, first. To have another you here… well, it's certainly weird."

"I completely sympathise" Doc said. "It's been weird for me, too, seeing the other versions of myself. It's very unnerving, but still astonishingly interesting." He paused for a moment, then continued. "Well, I shall get to the point now. My Marty and I came from another reality, another dimension – one in which I am living right here and now in 1988 Hill Valley, which my counterpart apparently isn't, and one in which Jules is just eleven years old!"

Local Marty stared at the aforementioned, as if just becoming aware of the guy's presence. "He's Jules?" he asked, softly.

Emmett nodded. "Jules Eratosthenes Brown, born 1886 – or, according to my newly made-up timeline sequence of events, born in the one of the early years of the Twenty-First Century." As the others except Jules frowned, he said: "All right, I'll explain things. But Marty, don't get angry with me. Just know that everything will turn out all right in the end."

Local Marty nodded, still confused. "Yeah, right" he said. "Just go ahead and tell, Doc. I'm waiting."

Emmett sighed, as he went off to tell his tale. Of how he, after successfully building a time machine out of a train, had thought about ways to return to his present for months. How he eventually gave up in January 1896, and focused on not creating alternate history in the past by excluding himself from the society. He did allow Jules and Verne to have a good education, though, but once Jules had graduated early at age 16 in 1902, he moved them to a part of land out of town, where he himself taught Verne information about things he needed to know, now and in the future, as the train was still around and the family still occasionally travelled ahead and backwards, if even just to visit the Marty of the '80s and '90s, and sometimes, the one of the late 2010s.

Then, in 1905, Jules and Verne had apparently taken a joyride trip to 1935, which had caused them to end up in a 1905-A and back in 1885 to fix the mess. After that, Jules had backed down from time travel a bit, but Verne had concentrated on the future, and had wanted to go there even more than before.

Finally, in 1910, Verne had told his parents that he couldn't take it any longer. He wanted to go to the future, and he wanted it now. Doc and Clara had put up a discussion with him about it, but Verne was stubborn, and finally, they allowed him to depart for 2020. A few minutes later, the train returned, empty, as Verne had gone to live in the future.

Doc, Clara and Jules then continued to live the next years in the past, very careful not to disrupt anything and possibly end the world-as-they-knew-it. The 1910s had come and passed, and then, the 1920s had arrived, with the arrival to the world of a certain Emmett Lathrop Brown, born to Friedrich von Braun and Sarah Lathrop. Doc and Clara had carefully avoided any contact with the inventor's younger self, and apparently, they'd succeeded, as Emmett had grown up to be more or less the same way he had before – a promising young inventor.

Here was it that Doc interrupted. "So, if you lived up until the 1920s all right, why are you moving to the future now? Did something go wrong in the past that made you decide that you hadn't made the right decision after all?"

Emmett smiled a bit. "Something like that" he said. "Because it's here that we will skip ahead, and the next portion of the story is one that Marty knows better – or at least, his future self. Some parts of that history have already happened, are slowly making the fundaments for the history of 2045 as I learnt it from your older self, Local Marty."

"And that is?" the teenager asked, suddenly even more interested.

Emmett continued his story, and told what had happened to the local Marty after October twenty-seventh, 1985. Marty had continued his life, and kept an eye on the garage from time to time, hoping that the inventor would move back eventually. Around March 1988, now a month ago, he'd finally given up all hope, and had looked for people to buy the place, which had occurred in July 1988. He'd gotten a nice amount of money for it, and had stored that for less good times, and partly in the hope that Doc would ever come to collect it. In the 1990s, he'd started a career in music, which Emmett didn't want to tell his friend about in fear it'd ruin that particular future, and he'd managed to finish that good in the latter years of the first decade of the Twenty-First Century, retiring in a house at the outskirts of Hill Valley with a wife and two wonderful kids.

But, apparently, a happy life hadn't been for this Marty. In this universe, Griff had been more than a little annoyed at 'Marty Junior' getting him to jail, and later beating him up as he'd tried to escape, with which he managed to get the heart of Griff's girl, Suzy MacArthur. He'd broken into the laboratory in 2045, where it had been restored to original shape as some kind of museum, in Marty's property, and got the blueprints for the time machine. Building a working time vehicle had cost him fifteen years, but finally, after stealing a DeLorean and various equipment pieces, he was finished on New Years Eve 2060, had travelled back to 2015, gave himself a nice almanac, and had changed the history of Hill Valley in a drastic way.

"Hell Valley Two" Local Marty muttered, grasping the whole situation and turning whiter than anyone could've imagined him doing.

"Correct" Emmett nodded, sighing. "Griff did as best of a job to ruin the world as he could. He bailed himself out of jail in '21 after hitting it big at a sports events that had been arranged there, and developed an empire within just three years. He took over major parts of Hill Valley, and built sex clubs in the Square. He married a Grass Valley native in 2026, got his son Xiff with her, and divorced her again in '29. Marty Junior tried to fight against 'GriffCo', which was murdering many people with it's toxic waste, but as the thirties arrived, everything was as horrible as it could've ever been. And that was before Griff finally got sick of his lifelong enemy trying to stop him and killed your son on March fifteenth, 2032 on a side road, not even thirty-four years old."

Both Marty's gasped. "Oh no" Local Marty groaned. "Poor Junior…" Even though the last time he'd seen his son was in 2015, for just a few minutes on that trip two-and-a-half years into the future, he could feel a bit of how it must feel to lose your child, and it didn't sound good at all.

"Your older self was horrified by that incident' Emmett continued. "He tried to get himself to calm down, and succeeded, but Jennifer didn't. She was just too unhappy, living in that great, big house where the family had lived in prior to the incident. Suzy, MJ's wife, cried every moment of the day, and finally, Jennifer gave into it all. On September seventeenth, her sixty-fourth birthday, she jumped off the roof and did not survive the crash."

"Holy shit" Visiting Marty muttered, shivering at the mere thought of something like that happening to his girlfriend. "Do-Emmett, can't you stop? This is so horrible…"

"Sorry, but it isn't over yet" Emmett said. "Your future self had began to build a time machine, together with Verne. Apparently, Griff had somehow suspected something was going on, as he had taken away your property and almost all of your money in June of that year. You and Jennifer, who was still alive at that time moved into a shelter out of town with Verne, while Suzy and her kids moved into an apartment uptown. She hoped that things would be going better there, but they didn't. Finally, she'd married Griff in August, thinking things would go better that way. Marty, you were horrified, but couldn't do anything."

"One heck of a nice future" the local teen quipped, sarcastically.

Emmett nodded, however fully aware of the sarcastic undertone. "You then continued building the time machine with Verne all through 2033, and tried to visit your grandkids sometimes, in order for them not to lose all faith. In December of that year, however, Griff had you be committed into the local asylum. Verne worked on, but was killed in April of '34. The only one aware of time travel at that point was his six-year-old daughter, Sarah Jennifer Brown. She was the one that was brought up by her unknowing mother during the next eight years, but left alone after her Mom's tragic death in 2042. In 2045, after three tragic lonely years, she finally decided enough was enough, and figured she'd go uptown for help from the only two people that were left behind to be able to do that; the last McFly's, Jennifer Junior and Marty III McFly, the adopted stepchildren of Griff and Suzy, the kids of Marty Junior."

"What was my grandson like?" Local Marty asked, somewhat curious.

"At first?" Emmett asked. "A wimp. Being pushed around by Tannen and his gang from before he'd even turned four, he was a wimp, did not want anyone to approach him closely before being good friends, and he acted wimpier than your fifties Dad – unless they really angered him. But under that wimpy shell was an intense rage against Griff Tannen, one that made him decide that he'd be willing to do anything up until a suicide action to somehow get revenge for Griff killing his father."

"You mean, that fact was well-known?" Doc asked, horrified. He'd been quiet throughout the first parts of the conversation, but he now spoke up.

To his relief – what kind of a horrid world would that be, if people actually knew that but didn't convict Griff for it – Emmett shook his head. "No, many people suspected that Marty Senior himself was the fault, having gone nuts in his elder years." Local Marty looked like he was about to faint, and the visitor didn't look too good himself. "But Marty the third had always suspected something, and inside, he just knew that it was Griff who had killed his father, and not his supposedly insane Granddad."

Doc nodded silently, and held quiet as Emmett continued his story. About what had happened with Sarah, once she'd gone into town and had spoken to Marty III. About them busting out Marty Senior a few days later, and working on the time machine hard during the month afterwards. And finally, on November twenty-fifth, they'd finished and tested the machine and were about ready to go to the past when Griff showed up. Emmett told about how they'd been able to escape, and even managed to get the exact date of Griff getting the almanac out of him – October 21, 2015, which was where they'd travelled to and vanished from the alternate 2045.

In 2015, Marty III had followed younger Griff around town, and Sarah had done the same with older Griff. Marty had been knocked out, once, and had ended up in his grandmother's bedroom, who lucky enough did not hit on him. Afterwards, he got through a few experiences with Griff and giving the almanac to his father, which turned out all wrong, but finally, he did get the book back, and after being picked up on a rope by Marty Senior and Sarah, they flew over to the football field behind the Courthouse.

"And there, my grandkid burned the almanac?" Local Marty asked, hoping this would finally put an end to the mess he was apparently going to end up in.

Unfortunately, Emmett shook his head. "I'm afraid not" he said. "Once Marty had settled down and lit a match to burn the almanac, there was a huge wind that blew it out at once. Marty just looked up in time to shout to his friends to watch out for the winds when the same blow caught the DeLorean and steered it towards a nearby telephone cable. The hook that was still on it, apparently your older self had kept it as a memory to that first incident, caught grip on the cable, and it electrocuted all over and zapped you back in time to midnight on July 1st, 1925."

Doc whistled. "Fascinating" he muttered. "So, Marty Senior ended up in a near similar position to ourselves?"

Emmett nodded. "He and Sarah were trapped in 1925, as again, the time circuits control microchip had broken from the impact of the lightning. Marty told me he tried to do everything to repair it, but after a month's work, they were just as far as when they started, and Marty decided that he should settle down in 1925, as he was hoping that I was still around and could help them get back to the moment after he left, so he went searching all over town for me – quite useless, as I'd moved out twenty-three years earlier, to settle a few miles out of town, which was right where Marty was not looking for me."

"Talk about bad luck" Local Marty muttered. "So, once this rolls around naturally, what do you expect me to do? Pretend to look for you while I know where you are? That's not going to be easy for me if I'm trapped and I know how to get out of there but I also know I am not allowed to do just that."

"It wasn't you, it was the you of a Griff-horrific reality, which is supposed to be erased in 2015, so you'll be fine" Emmett promised. "Well, anyway, in November, after Marty had searched for me for three months, he got into bigger trouble. Apparently, Buford Tannen had noticed that 'Clint' was back in town, and he wanted revenge, so he simply kidnapped Sarah and left a ransom note; he wanted Clint to meet him in less than a week, on November twelfth, 1925. That was when Marty decided that he had to send a letter to his grandson, which he did, and he buried the DeLorean in a nearby mine. That letter survived the next ninety years and safely arrived with Marty III the minute after he'd seen his grandpa and friend vanish back in time. So, Marty III read the first lines of the letter, realized where his grandfather was and that he apparently could not get out, which meant there was a time machine that had to be fixed. And who better to get help from than the inventor of the thing? So, Marty III headed to Hilldale, where he could catch up with the 47-year-old version of his Grandfather." He looked at Local Marty. "And this is where you might want to leave – it's not like this news is going to be terrible, but I don't want you to hear too much about your future. I've been forced to tell you too much already so that you wouldn't be too freaked out by my sudden reappearance and then disappearance again."

"What do I have to do, then?" the local said, disappointed. "Go out?"

"You can stay in the bathroom to relax for a bit if you like" Emmett said. "It should be closed there. I know you'll probably don't like it, but it's the best I can offer you. This is not the biggest house around, and in the bathroom, you won't hear much."

Local Marty groaned, but accepted the explanation, and headed off. As he was sure the teen was gone, Emmett turned back to his guests. "Shall I go on, now?"

"No need – let me guess this" the visiting teenager said, with a faint trace of a smirk. "I fainted at the sight of him, confusing him with… my younger self, I guess. He simply tried to wake me again, then gave up and moved him to my house. The next day, I accepted his appearance, and I fixed his time machine over the next few days before sending him back to 1925 on… the twenty-fifth?"

"That was very well-calculated, Marty" Emmett complimented. "Yeah, the twenty-fifth it was. On Thursday, October twenty-second, the DeLorean got out of the mine. Then, your counterpart, his son and his grandson visited the cemetery on the twenty-third, and over the next two days, they worked on the time machine. Marty III actually was sent back to November eighth, 1925, at the evening of October twenty-fifth, at the site of Lone Pine Mall. He had the bad luck, however, to be sent off with the hover conversion on."

"In which way is that bad?" Visiting Marty asked, confused. "It can't be dangerous to be high up in the sky…"

"He ran – or better, flew – right into a lot of birds."

"…but I think I see your point, Emmett. So, what happened then?" the nineteen-year-old asked. "What did those birds do? They shouldn't be too much of a danger."

"In normal situations, they wouldn't" Emmett said. "But, seeing as Marty had appeared right in the middle of them – luckily not in the middle of one of the birds, that is what the sonic booms took care of – those birds saw him as a danger and started to attack him – or, actually, the flying circuits."

"You don't mean…"

"Yup, they were totally destroyed." Emmett paused for a second, then continued. "Marty practically crash-landed."

"How did he get out?" the teenager wanted to know, having turned pale from being upset at the fate of his counterpart's grandson-to-be. "Or didn't he?"

To his immense relief, Emmett didn't answer 'yes' to that last question. "He did get out all right, thanks to the hoverboard, which worked as an airbag when Marty jumped out of the DeLorean at an altitude of, well, it can't have been less than ten, fifteen feet. However a little shaken, he got out all right, luckily, and your older self was kind of confused about that. No, the real problem was the DeLorean. Your older self from 2015 had… well, let's just say he had kind of made some unhandy modifications to the car."

"Like what?" Visiting Marty wanted to know.

"He'd put an amount of gas in the tank with spare tanks that were set on fire when the DeLorean hit the ground" Emmett said. Within seconds, the whole car went up in flames."

Both Doc and Marty gasped. "So, he was stuck in 1925?" Doc asked, suddenly concerned.

Emmett shook his head. "No, but we'll get to that. Anyway, Marty crashed the DeLorean. He tried to salvage it, but, thanks to a lack of technical knowledge and the fact the thing was so trashed that even a century work wouldn't improve it's quality unless he wanted to build it from scratch, he unfortunately was unable to do that, gave up on it and headed uptown, leaving the burning wreck out in the open." He frowned, obviously disapproving of that.

"Then, Marty headed uptown, and into the Café. Unfortunately, he met up with Driff Tannen there, who was doing his illegal alcohol dealing. Driff got mad at Marty, and they fought their conflict outside. Driff was trying to shoot Marty, when Marty Senior showed up – with a rifle."

Marty whistled. "Way to go me! This really is starting to sound just like that scene with Buford, Doc and I in 1885, when Buford tried to hang me."

"It certainly does appear to be so, doesn't it?" Emmett said, smirking. "Yeah, it was a lot like that. Only, with Buford, I just concentrated on rescuing the other you. This time around, Marty Senior too confronted Driff about Sarah."

Marty nodded silently, and Emmett told the story. After Driff had backed off, there had been another scene with the whole "who dressed you up" thing, in which it appeared to be that Marty '15 knew a lot more about his favourite time period than Doc '55 did, probably due to the fact that he was an official ex-time traveller and had researched the period more thoroughly. After that, Marty and Marty Senior had headed over to the latter's shop, where Marty had gawked at his grandpa's inventions.

After speaking with each other, Marty III had been embarrassed to tell his grandpa about the DeLorean's unfortunate end, after which he ex-musician had realized that if they wouldn't find Doc soon, they were in trouble. So, they'd gone off to check the local archives the next day, Monday – November ninth. And, after a morning of searching intensively, the result had still been nothing, except for Marty mistaking the address of Doc's parents for the inventor's, which he was very embarrassed about later on. After all, the young Emmett Brown that lived at his parent's house at 1640 Riverside Drive was only five years old, and therefore he wouldn't really be much of a help for them.

Finally, at the beginning of that afternoon, Marty had gone out to the Café, stood up for his teen great-great-grandpa, Arthur, thereby unwillingly angering Hill Valley's local bully, one Miff Tannen. Borrowing a 'wheel board' from Young Emmett, who had been pretending it was a horse in the park in front of the Courthouse, Marty fled, and one more chase scene had began.

Marty III had found himself in much more trouble controlling the board than his teen grandfather in 1955, which was only natural due to the fact that he was used to riding hoverboards and not to riding skateboards. He narrowly managed to avoid Miff hitting him with a wooden plank, and randomly skated through the street, as Miff started to chase him in his car. Finally, as Marty was just getting used to the skateboard and was able to get faster, which was pretty necessary as Miff was just about ten feet behind him, Marty slipped over a banana peel, lost control, got thrown backwards and landed right on the front of the car Miff was driving, blocking the latter's ability of looking through the windshield.

Marty then somehow had managed to get back on his skateboard, just in time for Miff to open his mouth, wide, as he saw he was approaching a still standing manure truck. Moments later, he hit it, and manure fell on Miff, causing him to groan in frustration and exclaim that he hated manure.

Marty had then returned, happily, to give back the board to the younger version of the person that they were looking for, Emmett Brown. At that, Marty was approached by a shy but thankful Arthur McFly, who asked Marty and his grandpa to join them at dinner that evening, suggesting that Seamus and Marty Senior 'Clint' could perhaps talk a bit more about the way life in town had gone since forty years ago, and their common friend, the blacksmith, Emmett Brown.

It was here that Marty interrupted. "Didn't my other self apparently 'die'?" he asked. "I mean, they named the ravine after him here too. He couldn't just show up out of nowhere and hope no one would notice him appearing forty years after his supposed death." He frowned. "At age seventy-seven, while he's supposed to be late fifties…"

Emmett smiled. "He'd had a rejuvenation done in the year 2025, reducing his age a thirty years" he explained to a confused Marty. "He had aged faster when in the mental hospital, however, putting him a decade ahead of what he would've been if he had aged naturally after the rejuvenation. So, seventy-seven, subtract thirty and add ten, what's that?"

"Fifty-seven" Marty admitted, nodding. "The age he was supposed to be by 1925, if he'd naturally lived there from 1885 on. I think I do get your point, now…" Something then occurred to him. "What about the other thing? About him being supposed to have died in that train wreckage and all?"

"We'll get to that" Emmett promised. "They just decided to keep the ravine's name the same way, as the townsfolk was used to the name by then. But we'll get to the cover story your counterpart faked later on. Let me go on, first."

"Go ahead" Marty offered.

Emmett did. Marty III had apparently gone home, excitedly, and Marty Senior had been excited too to hear about the things that had apparently happened to led up to this event, feeling proud of his grandson avoiding being beaten up by a Tannen, and rescuing Arthur. He'd agreed with going to dinner that evening, hoping to find information on his friend, enough to find him and, hopefully, persuade him to at least let them borrow the train, and, perhaps, go along with them.

That night, that had indeed happened. Seamus had asked Marty Senior the question that was burning on everyone's mind: how did he survive the train wreckage? The nervous inventor had finally settled on a fake story about how he'd managed to jump off just in time, but had hit his head against a rock. When he woke up, about twenty-two hours later in the early morning of Tuesday, the eighth of September, he had amnesia and failed to remember his true identity. He'd wandered off to out of town, and had finally found a home in Grass Valley. He'd married a local girl and fathered Clint Junior in late 1886. Clint Jr on his turn had fathered Marty, who was supposed to be called 'Steven Spielberg Eastwood', and had died in 1912, which was a reference to what really happened to Marty Junior in the alternate world.

Before that, Marty Senior had confronted his ancestor with the question that he wanted to know the answer to: Where was Doc? Seamus had told him about Doc moving away, and Marty Senior had gone to visit his friend the next day. Emmett had naturally freaked out at first, but eventually he had managed to stay calm, not faint and he focused on the task at hand. They'd exchanged stories and visited the DeLorean wreck, taking it inside Emmett's house. Emmett revealed that the train's flying and driving circuits were busted, and explained their plan to them for going to Sacramento to push the train off a hill so it would get up to 88, and have sun panels to catch the electricity in the 2045 air. Emmett volunteered to come along the next day, with Clara and Jules, and they started their plan, Doc showing he had a cool airplane to pull the train over to the hill.

The next day, November eleven, Emmett had showed them a model for getting back home, made of a fake hill and a toy train. He also told Marty more about their plans for the next day – the big one.

Then, there was the big day. November twelfth, 1925. Or rather, the big evening. That night, Marty Senior had showed up at the manure pile just on time. Buford had shot Marty, but when trying to do the same to Sarah, Marty III showed up. As Buford tried to shot them both, Marty Senior showed up in ghost-form. The gang fled, but Buford didn't, and discovered the fake wound was nothing more than a small bag of tomato sauce, which had also caught the bullet. At that moment, he was tripped by none else than Doc Brown, whom he tried to shoot as well. This time, it was Marty III who prevented it, and knocked Tannen unconscious. They had succeeded, and Doc, Marty Senior, Marty and a dumbfounded Sarah then made their way to the airplane, and to Sacramento.

The plane crash-landed at the mountain at around 9:56, and after short introductions everyone quickly went to work. Emmett headed inside to set the Destination Time, and after making sure everyone was inside, he pulled the lever that would push them off the hill and onto the path that led them downwards. That was quickly done, and the train started to move downwards at a speed that soon went faster. As they were around fifty, Emmett announced he had to get out to pull some more levers, and he got out of the cab, moving along the edge of the train. As he was relieved to be done at around sixty, however, and was about to go back, he was stopped doing that by one Driff Tannen, who was holding a beer bottle and a gun, and had apparently come out here to get revenge for his Dad's failure to beat 'Eastwood'.

Luckily, Driff was too distracted to shoot the inventor right away, which he would've easily been able to do, having inherited his father's talents in that, and lack of intelligence in many other area's, which once more came to Emmett's advantage. He managed to convince Driff he was an alien by using the walkie-talkie, and in Driff's confusion, Marty Senior headed out of the cab, just moments before the speed hit seventy, and at sixty-nine, Driff finally appeared to realize their surroundings – the fact that they were on a moving train which was going at almost seventy miles per hour and was about to fall off a hill.

Just moments later, that event indeed did happen, and they were suddenly falling down at seventy miles per hour in the middle of air. Driff had a hard time hanging onto the machine, holding his gun and his beer bottle, and that was the chance Marty Senior saw. Without any warning, he threw his walkie-talkie against Driff's left wrist, which was the only one still holding onto the train, albeit loosely.

That did the trick. Driff released, if only for a moment, and after that moment, there was nothing to hold anymore as he lost his balance and fell down with a scream, luckily not getting killed twenty-two years before his actual death in a car accident, together with son Miff, that would leave Young Biff and his old saddened grandma behind together. Anyway, in 1925, Marty Senior had a sigh of relief, then motioned for Emmett to come over, as the time machine was going at around seventy-five miles per hour and the common early symptoms of temporal displacement – electricity forming, parts lighting up – were just a few miles away from kicking in.

They did at around the moment Emmett reached the time machine, which had just hit eighty miles an hour and was now almost vertically falling down, no matter how hard Jules twisted the steering wheel backwards. The inventor got in, sat down, and hold on to the wall tight as he felt gravity pushing him forwards into the front of the train, like everyone felt that.

Jules tried a final tug, then gulped as he saw the fishing pole that he had once made, twenty-eight years ago, rapidly approaching as the point where death would be their sakes. But, just then, they had hit eighty-eight with a bright flash of light and they saw the darkness around them change into even greater darkness, and suddenly, the time machine stopped slowing down, and Jules had tugged once more on the steering wheel, causing the machine to climb up to the skyway and fly it's way to the McFly house of this new 2045. Marty III was dropped off, and inside discovered a new family, a living father and an alternate counterpart. Stories were told, and by the next day, he met up with Sarah again, saw Griff-the-servant in action, and met his grandpa and Doc, who had picked up Future Griff's time machine and were now off to travel through time.

"So Marty and I travelled around a little bit, and we picked up some parts for the train" Emmett said. "And finally, in mid-November, about three weeks after we arrived, I realized that I needed some things out of my old garage and wanted to make sure everything valuable was out of there, and Jules decided to join me on a trip backwards. We accelerated up over the street, deciding a few months before the building was sold would be best. We then arrived right on schedule in 1988… but encountering you two and the Local Marty was certainly not what I'd expected."

"An interesting story" Doc said, smiling a bit. "It does remind me a bit of the adventures Marty and I went through in the alternate 1985 and the Old West, all right. I'm glad that everything turned out fine, and that you managed to return to 2045 all right. I would tell you my story, but the only way in which it differs from yours is that we moved back to 1986, bought a house, and we're still living there." He grinned. "Jules and Verne are ten and eight in our world, now, and will turn eleven and nine in respectively September and October. And Martin…"

"Who's Martin?" Emmett interrupted, his face showing that he honestly had no idea what his counterpart was talking about.

"Martin Socrates Brown, born November twelfth, 1986" Doc prompted. "Clara and my third son. Born right at 10:04 P.M, the thirty-one year anniversary of lightning striking the clock tower." He grinned, obviously proud of that fact. "Named after Marty – he's almost seventeen months old, now." As he noticed the blank look on Emmett's face, he asked: "You really don't know him?"

"No, and unless I'm going through a period of serious amnesia, which the previous story should've proved I'm not, he never existed either" Emmett said. "There was no Martin born on what should be… November twelve, 1895, and he never existed. Jules and Verne were the only two children that Clara and I ever had. We might've wanted more, but it never happened."

"I still can't believe you never moved back to 1985" Visiting Marty said. "I mean, you know your Marty missed you…"

"A little" Emmett protested. "He did not tell me all that much in 2019."

Doc now frowned. "I assume Marty is talking about our trip to 1994" he said.

The look on the local inventor's face was near priceless. "_Which_ trip to 1994?" he asked, obviously confused.

"Well, just the trip we made from December twenty-fourth 1894 to the same date in 1994, in order to visit Marty from then and his family… you really have not experienced that?"

Emmett shook his head. "I intended to visit the McFly's, but Clara reminded me that we'd better go to her parents. I figured there was always a next year and agreed. The next year, however, _we_ were visited by her parents, and in 1896 we had an accident with the train just before we were supposed to go. When I departed in 1897 together with the whole family, 1997 Marty was a happy guy who had just gotten his first child. I didn't really get the impression that he missed me so much, so I gave up on the idea I had toyed around with a bit, moving to the future, mostly because I also really couldn't find a way to fit in my kids. We'd have to pretend to be married in '73 around that time already, and we would have to have had Jules and Verne in '74 and '76. Clara and I being that long out of contact was no one going to believe, so we gave up on the plan. Too bad, I would've liked moving back. Well, that finally happened twenty-eight years later, though… so it isn't like we never moved."

"And because of the fact Martin was not there, for one reason or another, you never got the huge urge to move back" Doc finished, somewhat shocked. "After all, when Clara discovered she was pregnant in March of the year we were moving back from, I really did not want the kid to be born in 1895. That was one of our major reasons to hurry up and go back home. We wanted the baby-that-would-be-Martin to be safe and sound in the 1980s, and not have another baby be born in the bad condition of the 1890s. Even though we could've always gone to a futuristic hospital in the 2040s or something like that, I preferred that Martin would be born in the place and time where we actually lived, as it would also raise less suspicion."

"Good point" Emmett said, nodding. "That's probably what I would've done in such a situation, too. Great Scott, a third additional child…"

Their conversation was interrupted by someone knocking on a door. Marty recognized Local Marty's voice immediately as his own. "Hello? Can I come out, now?"

"Um, yes, we're done" Emmett called back. "I'm sorry, I forgot to alert you of the fact that we were done discussing your future… it was just interesting to discuss things with another version of myself." He looked at Doc, a faint smile on his face. "You know, I believe this is the last time I've seen another version of myself since that encounter in 1955 – and then, I didn't really look face-to-face at, well, me. If your Marty hadn't helped me, I think I would've fainted. It really is amazing to see you and realize that you are in a way me, but in another way you aren't. Isn't it stunning?"

"Definitely" Local Marty agreed, coming out into the garage. "So, you're from another dimension?" He chuckled. "This is just way weird. I don't believe I've ever imagined something like this before."

"I would've sincerely doubted it if you said you had" Emmett said, laughing.

Local Marty looked at him, somewhat of a smile on his face. Finally, he asked: "Doc…"

"Emmett" the local inventor corrected. "They are apparently in a habit to call themselves 'Doc' and 'Visiting Marty' and the locals 'Emmett' and 'Local Marty', and who am I to break with that tradition?"

"Yeah, right" Local Marty said, disinterested. "Emmett – boy, that sounds odd, calling you on a first-name base – does this whole thing mean you're moving back? Are you visiting to move back to the future? I've been considering giving up waiting, since you've been away for two-and-a-half years now…"

Emmett sighed, and shook his head. "I've already moved back" he said. "To the future, to a time that can not yet be known to you. Let's just say it's after 2015. The far future. I'm just here to pack my stuff that I want to keep, actually, and bring it over to my current future home."

The look of disappointment on Marty's face was obvious to everyone with a little amount of brains. "But Doc, you're supposed to be my friend! Why aren't you moving back right away!"

The inventor sighed. "Marty, in case you haven't noticed yet, I'm from the year 1925. That's a full forty years after you last saw me. I can't move back with sons of thirty-nine and thirty-seven, whom I've apparently lived away from for four decades. Do you think anyone is going to believe Jules here is a year and a half old? And Verne is supposed to be just an embryo, developing to become a child no earlier than October this year! Verne is thirty-seven now!" He sighed. "Just concentrate on your career, Marty, and everything will be fine. You can become the rock star of your dreams, if you just want to and focus on it, not be sad because I'm in the past… or in the future, now. You just have to remember what I've always taught you, that if you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. Anything at all, if you just want to and put all your effort into it, and you will succeed. I have confidence in you, Marty McFly."

The local smiled, faintly. "Thanks, Doc" he said. "I mean, Emmett. Boy, I haven't concentrated on my future too much have I? Yeah, you're right. I should push myself to be somebody. It's like that old saying goes: we must learn from the past, plan for the future, but live for today. And that's right what I'm going to do."

"That's the spirit" Emmett applauded.

"Thanks" Local Marty said. Then, realizing something, he said: "Say, Doc, now you've told me all this, won't this alter the very future you come from? I mean, you're changing history by giving me motivation to go on with my career and all…"

"You're starting to get good at thinking fourth-dimensionally" Emmett complimented. "But, no, everything will be fine. In the original history, you figured this out on your own just a few months after this. If you wanna know, though, you did sign up for college there, so you better do so now as well. I'm not telling you to give up your rock career, but I'm encouraging you to continue your education so that you have a spare career to pursue. Also, you never know when that knowledge will come in handy."

"Is that a hint to my future?" Local Marty teased.

"That's a question for you and knowledge to me, Future Boy" Emmett teased back. "But one thing is sure – the future is whatever you make of it, and I'll hope you make it a good one in the next fifty-s… in the next years that I'm not going to be here."

Local Marty didn't appear to have heard the slip, and if he did, he didn't show it. "Thanks, D-Emmett" he said. "I'm definitely going to do that, as I told you two-and-a-half years ago. If Jen and I can make our future a happy one, I'm going to do everything I can to get there."

"Yeah" Visiting Marty said, nodding. "That goes for me, too. I don't have any intention of becoming the loser Old Biff said I was. I sincerely believe that what you said is true, uh, Emmett, and I'm going to try to make it that way." He then high-fived with Local Marty, grinning happily at the idea of a nice future.

"Thanks" Emmett said, smiling a little. He then turned to Doc. "Now that we've told our stories, I assume you want me to take a look at your time vehicle? After all, you, or actually, your Marty, said it was broken, and if you want me to repair it, I'll have to take a look at it first. What's it current condition?"

"If the internal system is to believe, perfectly fine" Doc said, sighing. "But I know it isn't like that. We would be back home if it was. Something must be going wrong, but I haven't got the slightest idea how to figure out just what happened if that stupid thing keeps telling us everything is all right!" He slammed his fist on the table, startling everyone, and then blushed. "Sorry for getting angry like that. It's just that we – we've been at this for hours. It's somewhere around eleven-thirty P.M. in our home dimension, and I feel tired, but above all I'm frustrated at that stupid device!"

"Me too" Visiting Marty agreed, joining Doc on the matter. "I still can't believe how that stupid system can say that everything is all right, while it obviously isn't! I know it doesn't have brains, but it's very _purpose_ is to find info on the fact if everything is right or if it isn't! So why did it fail to do that now? How can it even suggest that everything is all right, while the thing itself is already completely screwed up!"

"I don't know, Marty" Doc said, sighing. "It should work normally – there's no reason to believe it shouldn't. The question of why it isn't is just as confusing to answer for me as it is for you."

"If that's the case, I think I could at least try to have a look" Emmett said. "You are another version of myself, after all, so I wouldn't want to have you leave this world before I'm positive that I can do nothing for you – which I am not, right now. After all, I've had seventy years life since I came up with the flux capacitor. You had about forty-two or forty-three, if I remember correctly. I've got a lot more experience, if you put it at that."

"True" Doc said, nodding with a smile. "I guess you might be able to try something, then. I suppose it's wishful thinking that we get home at the first dimension in which we really tried to repair the system, but I wouldn't really mind if we would. I like seeing other worlds, but right now, all I want is to get home to Clara and the boys. I have to just think of being trapped dimension-hopping forever and I'll shudder violently. The thought of leaving little Martin alone, without a father, at seventeen months old… and Jules and Verne, of course, and the one I'll miss most of all, my dear beloved Clara…"

Emmett patted him on the back. "I know the feeling" he said, sympathetically. "Losing Clara and my sons would be one of the worst things that could ever happen to me. I love them with my entire heart, and the thought of losing them upsets me more than the thought of Biff restoring his horrifying world… or Griff doing that, for that matter. It's terrible to think of losing the ones I love, even if I still have Marty. I gained so much when I went to 1885, losing it all would be too much for me to take. Great Scott, I think I'd rather kill myself than live further without Clara and my kids…"

"I understand" Doc said. "But, luckily, it isn't that way yet. Even if I have to hop through dimensions with Marty for years, we'll always be able to return to the exact moment we left. Clara won't have to miss me, I'm sure. But I'll miss her… anyway, I don't think that will happen. We'll be fine, and I'm sure that, within a few hours, perhaps days of hopping, we'll either hit the jackpot and get home or find a dimension with a me to fix this mess – perhaps that's even yours already, but I don't want to get Marty's and my hopes up – in case we won't be able to go back to our 1988. And in the meantime, I'm sure that there will be other versions of Clara out there to hang around with while waiting before we hit the right dimension that brings us home. And that might take some time, but I'll do everything I can do to hit that dimension soon!"

"That's what I would do too, if I was in your situation" Emmett agreed. "And while I'm not, I think I can at least try to help you. Are we going to your time machine… Marty said it was a bus if I'm not mistaken… now?"

Doc nodded. "Yeah, I suppose we should go. No use in hanging around here for longer than necessary." He turned to Visiting Marty. "It might take some while for me to finish this business with my counterpart, especially if he can figure out what's wrong with the thing…"

"It's fine, Doc" the visitor assured him. "For all I care, you can stay away for a day. I just want the time machine to be fixed, and that ain't going to happen if you do a rush job 'cause you don't want to keep me waiting. I'll go talk with my counterpart a bit, or maybe I can read some old books of yours, or actually, of your counterpart… I won't be bored, trust me. You just go check the time machine and everything's fine."

Doc apparently doubted that, judging from the somewhat concerned look on his face, but he said nothing as he headed off to go check on the time machine. As he and Emmett had exited, Visiting Marty stared after them, distracted in his thoughts. He probably would have continued to be that had Local Marty's voice not broken through the silence.

"What's your life with Doc?"

Visiting Marty turned towards his other self, clearly puzzled at what the guy could mean. "Huh?" he said, feeling stupid and curious at the same time.

"How are you doing, living in a 1988 with Doc around?" the local clarified. "I just wanna know what it's like to have Doc around to get help from and drop by if something isn't going all right and it concerns history or science…"

"It's… pretty fine, I guess" the teen muttered. "I mean, I always had him be around ever since he returned to 1986, which is in a month from now almost two years ago. But if you really wanna know what you missed, I guess I can't exactly tell you the details, as it's been just two years. So, if you want to know details, know how it's like to _live_ with Doc and all, why don't you ask him?" That question was accompanied by the visitor pointing at Jules, who was sitting there and reading in another copy of 'Twenty-Thousand Miles Under The Sea'. "He lives with his Dad. He knows what being with Doc is like for real, as he grew up with his father helping him out with things and all, back in the late Nineteenth, early Twentieth Century."

"I suppose" Local Marty muttered, staring at his counterpart with envy. Visiting Marty could clearly see the look on his face: 'I wish I was as lucky as you are'. Then, Local Marty stood up, and made his way over to Jules.

The alternate version of Doc's oldest son was apparently not too deep into his book, having read it millions of time, as he looked up, somewhat startled, when he heard Marty approaching. "What's the matter?" he asked, a little confused.

"How's your life like?" Local Marty asked. "You're living with Doc, in the Twenty-First Century… right?" Jules nodded. "What was it like to grow up with a scientific Dad and an astronomic-fascinated Mom?"

Jules chuckled. "Not as bad as you apparently think" he said, grinning. "I am actually somewhat of a science buff too, so my father often helped me out in the rare times I did not figure out how to do my homework, and helped me understand it easily. I graduated in 1901 from High School, and in 1906 from college. In 1907 I officially reached my PhD in physics. I was twenty-one back then."

Well, that sounded like a kind of boring life, except for a real science fan. Local Marty decided to get another approach. "How about Verne, your brother?" he asked. "Was he a science fan too?"

Again, Jules laughed. "No" he said. "Verne was always focused on his free time. He liked science, but wasn't really into it as much as I was. Finally, he decided to go for a career as a sports teacher on a school. He graduated on the more official time in 1905, just one year off, and he did get through college in the same time as is normal, graduating in 1910. That same year, however, he decided to move to the future – 2020. Apparently, he changed career there, having started to like the music you play."

Local Marty whistled with a smile. "Really? That's cool. I wish I could somehow get in contact with him."

"I don't want to upset you, but I'm afraid you have to wait quite some years for that to happen" Jules said, with a sigh. "Verne is years away from now, so you will just have to wait for contact with him to show up naturally. If you put your mind to it, you'll accomplish anything, and 2020 will be there before you know it."

"It's thirty-two years away" Local Marty argued. "That's a long time."

"Just focus on other things and the time will fly by" Jules said, smiling. "I know, I've experienced waiting before. Focus on working through and graduating from college in a few years, your music, your wife, and eventually, your kids. Having kids in the house can apparently be a major distraction from waiting, too, or so I've heard from Father, who had to wait for a few years to finish the time train, and for thirty to finish the DeLorean. But the years with having you around, the last decade, flew by for him because you were there." He smiled at his father's old friend. "Not that I know from experience, I never had any kids or felt like someone was my kid, but it apparently is so."

Local Marty frowned at Jules. "You're single?" he asked. "Couldn't you find anyone to marry in the past?"

Jules sighed. "That's correct, I'm afraid" he muttered, moving his left hand through his hair in frustration. "Most likely, I was too scientific for the local girls to like. Verne was more popular, but he didn't really have a true girlfriend either. Which was just as well, as any social interaction with a female unit in a time that was still in a state of uncertainty if it would turn out to be the way Father grew up in could possibly have had disastrous consequences to the entire space-time continuum. All things considered, I suppose it was just as well." He looked towards the roof of the garage, obviously envying his father and Marty, who both had a mate to share life with. "Well, maybe I will meet my wife-to-be someday. Father was sixty-five when he met Mother after all, and I haven't even turned forty yet. At my age, Father was a bachelor in the year 1959, who was focusing on his future invention, the time machine."

Local Marty nodded thoughtfully, then came with a rather unexpected question. "If I may ask, why do you keep calling Doc 'Father'? Why not Dad, or even Daddy or something like that?"

Jules blinked in surprise. "Well, I suppose I did that out of politeness" he said. "I don't really feel like I should call Father like that. Verne always did, but I never felt the urge to say something like that." He turned to Visiting Marty. "Does your dimension's version of me call his father 'Dad'?"

"Yeah" Visiting Marty said, but then admitting: "According to Doc, he did use to call him Father, but changed that after Doc corrected him once they got back to 1894 after visiting the future and Jen and I in '85, at the DeLorean wreckage. Jules… our world's Jules, I mean… understood that it was more common in 1985 and 1986 to call your male parent 'Dad', rather than 'Father', so he stopped doing that."

Jules nodded, thoughtfully. "I see" he said. "I probably would've done the same as my counterpart, in such a situation. Now, Other Marty, if Fa-Dad and his family moved back to the 1980s, how old would my counterpart be in your world?"

"Ten years old, since September last year" Visiting Marty said, after short thinking. "He was supposedly born on September twenty-fifth of 1977. Doc sort of had the last nine years before 1976 altered. I remember how he took me to a wedding ceremony with him and Clara on November twelfth 1976, on Christmas day of 1985 and March second 1895 for us respectively. I posed as Calvin Klein's son and was one of the witnesses. I suppose many people who heard about the fake story in '85 and '86 wondered why I, I mean the nine-year-old me, was not a witness, but I told them I was too young, and that I did attend. That was one of the lucky things of having it happen so far back – there was a good excuse for me not being a witness."

Jules whistled in amazement. "I can't believe I'm actually eleven where you came from, and that I have a third brother" he said. "What's this Martin like? More like me or more like Verne?"

Visiting Marty had to think about that for a few moments. "More like you, I suppose" he finally concluded. "Martin is only a year and a half now, not even completely, but Doc told me he's going to be a doctor of medicine in the future. He'd have to study hard if he wants to make it, and a kind of Verne-attitude isn't going to get him there. I'm sure he'll be a lot like you, Jules."

"Well, that's good to know" Jules said, smirking. He stared outside. "Say, I think Father… I mean Dad and Doc will spend some time there… mind having a book to read? You can read this copy of 20.000 Miles Under The Sea, if you like, and for your local counterpart, Dad should have Around The World In Eighty Days around. Do you want me to get that for you?"

"I suppose I don't have much else to do, right now" the Marty's answered, simultaneously, then burst out laughing. "Honestly," the local said, "I would be pretty interested. Thanks, Jules."

"You're welcome" the scientist said, as he stood up to get the book. Visiting Marty looked after him, then stared into the Twenty Thousand Miles Under The Sea copy, and started reading, wondering just how long it would take before they'd get back home. Probably, their adventures were just beginning. He sighed, and concentrated on the book.

* * * *

Doctor Emmett Lathrop Brown smiled as his counterpart's jaw dropped at the time travelling bus. "Great Scott!" the local who perhaps was not so local at all called out. "You made a time travelling bus? Just for the purpose of travelling through dimensions?"

"I thought it would be original" Doc said, shrugging. "Also, you can clearly see it fits more people than the DeLorean, or even the train. I think it's a good mode of temporal transportation, and less suspicious than a very '80s DeLorean, or a steam train from the past. Not that there's anything wrong with those, but I like the inconspicuousness of this bus."

"Yeah, I suppose so" Emmett said, still gasping at everything. He walked over to the door on the side, looked intensely at the pad next to the door, then pressed his thumb to it. There was a slight buzz, and then a green light. However, the bus did not open. Emmett frowned. "What's wrong?" he asked. "It gave a green light, so why doesn't it let me in?"

Doc smiled, and got a key out of his pocket. Before Emmett could react, he stuck the key into a hole next to the thumbpad. Recognizing the key in front of it, the hole changed to form an ordinary lock. Doc pushed the key into it, twisted it, and then, he stepped back as the key was sucked up by the machine and another thumbpad formed where the hole had been. "Confirm thumb information" it said. As Doc did so, by pressing his thumb to the plate again, it was scanned thoroughly, and then, a green light flashed and the door opened. Emmett gawked at the security methods. "Efficient" he admitted, then stepped inside.

The instant Emmett entered, his jaw dropped. He stared around at the familiar modifications, and at the length of the bus. Finally, his eye was set on the DFSCUPCIF unit. "That's your dimensional transportation device?" he guessed.

"Exactly" Doc confirmed. "The Dimensional Flux Storage Capacitor Unit as well as Purposely Creator of an Interdimensional Field, DFSCUPCIF for short. It easily creates a hole between dimensions, and sends the time machine through it. The efficient thing about this device is that it needs exactly equal energy to create a dimensional field as it needs to time travel or do both: A full 2.42 gigawatt of electricity. That's a lot, of course, but thanks to the Mr. Fusion unit that I installed on top of it, that doesn't have to be a problem. I assume that Marty from the altered future also installed that on his DeLorean, and Old Griff did, and you did on yours when travelling to 2015 that first time and discovering Marty's kids had gotten in big trouble, and their Dad even more?"

"That's right" Emmett confirmed. "I never saw Marty's unit though. His DeLorean, as I've told you, crashed to the ground on the eighth of November 1925, two days before he and Marty looked me up. That was why they needed me – now the DeLorean was destroyed, I was their only way to get back to the future. I and my train. Also, Marty Senior admitted that he missed me a lot, so I decided to come back with him, along with Jules, Clara, young Marty, him and Sarah, who was apparently my future granddaughter."

Doc sighed. "I wish I was as happy as you are, living in an advanced 2045 without worries to fix something because when you need to fix something, there will be technology around."

"Why don't you travel to the future then?" Emmett said. "You can fix things there."

"Because I need help of a me who knows about time travel, and I'm not sure if there will be me's like that in the far future" Doc said, sighing. "I'll just keep it to 1988 for now, and see what comes up."

Emmett nodded. "Can I take a closer look at the systems?" he asked. "Perhaps spot something you haven't yet?"

"Go ahead" Doc offered. "Do whatever you want. As long as this thing is fixed, I don't care if you take the whole DFSCUPCIF apart and fix it back together later. Marty and I just want to go home."

Emmett chuckled. "I don't think I'll go quite that far" he said. "But I'll do my best to help you. Now, where are the systems you spoke about?"

As Doc helpfully pointed them out, Emmett went to work, studying the various panels in the time train as the younger inventor leaned back to watch himself work. Every now and then, he helped by pointing some things out, but apparently, Emmett didn't really need that information too much. The older man studied various panels, ran a few tests on the machine, and once, he stared intensely at the flux capacitor, wondering if he should try to take the case off it or not. When it finally was somewhere around four-forty P.M., Emmett finally headed over to Doc, who was killing time by looking out of the window, and tapped the visitor on the shoulder, startling Doc for a moment. The younger man stared at his older counterpart, and wondered what was of the matter. "Yeah?" he asked.

Emmett sighed, in his face a look of both feeling sorry and apologizing. "I am sorry, but I did not find anything" he said. "I studied the DFSCUPCIF upside-down, and I ran various tests on the systems, but after almost two hours, I guess I'm just as far as I was when I started. This is a bigger problem, and I cannot grasp it at the moment. I'm sorry, I would've wanted to fix it as much as you do, since I see how bad you feel about it. But I simply can't, so I guess it's best for you and your Marty just to move on, and hope the next me will be somewhat more intelligent."

Doc sighed. "It's okay" he said, staring in front of himself as rain fell down on the windshield. "I guess it was wishful thinking to hope that everything would be fixed in the first universe in which we actively _tried_ to do that, but I just hoped that everything would be fine and that luck might be with us…" He sighed. "It's probably going to upset Marty a lot, knowing that we have to go on for another dimension, and probably many more, but if you really can't see the problem, hanging around here will do more good than bad, and the earlier we get out of this world, the earlier our problem is fixed."

"Or so you hope" Emmett couldn't help but quip. "Sorry, that wasn't really a nice thing to say. I sincerely hope for you that the time machine will be fixed and that you could get home. I can't say I envy you right now, although having a third kid would've been nice, as well as living in the same time period as teen Marty."

"Yeah, having Martin was quite the surprise" Doc said. "Emmett, would you mind telling my Marty it's time to go? I'd like to have one more look at the systems before we leave."

The older man nodded and headed off, as Doc focused on the time machine in front of him. It looked just like it had always done when functioning, and everything was green. Then, what could possibly be going on? They had already determined that it was not a once-in-a-time error. Apparently, something was going wrong in the time machine's mechanism, most likely in the DFSCUPCIF, and there was something wrong with the computer system as well. Just what they needed – double problems. This really was not a fun day out, or at least, not to his perspective.

Doc sighed as he stared in front of himself, and turned to the systems. "Check functions" he said, figuring out this would work too, and he was not in the mood to say the long explanation. "Style: Most careful." He leaned back as the machine went to work.

The familiar green screens saying everything was okay lit up at the same time as Marty arrived, an obviously disappointed look on his face. "We failed again?" he asked, then he looked at the inventor's face and drew his own conclusions. "Shit. Something really is against us today."

"Today and yesterday" Doc corrected. "According to my watch, it's one thirty-seven A.M. on Sunday, April third now. We've been at this dimension-hopping for thirteen hours, and I still haven't figured out what the heck is wrong with this thing!"

Marty patted the older man's back, sympathetically. "I feel the same way, Doc" he said. "So I guess we'd better be on our way right now. Do you have to load the Mr. Fusion before we leave?"

Doc shook his head. "There's more than enough in it, even after we've made two trips through time and dimensions. We can go for six more trips before having to reload." He smiled as he realized that particular piece of luck, then looked outside. Emmett, Jules and Local Marty stood there, and started to wave as they saw first Doc, and later Visiting Marty appear at the window.

"Good luck!" Local Marty exclaimed. "Have a nice trip!" Doc smirked at that, realizing the only nice trip would be one back home.

"Good luck with fixing the temporal vehicle!" Jules called out.

Emmett agreed with that. "Yes, good luck, and maybe goodbye!"

Doc smirked. "Who knows" he called back, waved once more, then returned to the panels. "Flying circuits on" he said, as the train lifted up. "Destination Time… let's see, it's 1:39 AM in our dimension now, so let's make it twelve-forty. Saturday, April 2, 1988, 12:40 P.M., Hill Valley, California, PF 50." He flew the time machine through the sky as the Destination filled itself into the panels. He then turned around. "Ready to go?" he shouted to his friend.

Marty grinned. "Yeah, I'm ready" he said. "Shouldn't we move over to the ravine, though? I mean, attracting less attention and all?"

Doc sighed. "I'm not really in the mood for that" he said. "If we're in the right world, I'd like to find out right away, and it didn't really attract much attention last time."

"Your house was out in the open" Marty reminded him. "This garage is right here in the middle of East Hill Valley. We'd be more likely to get spotted here."

"Whatever" Doc said, sighing, his tone of voice proving he was getting sick of this. "Let's just go. I want to go home as much as you do, and I suppose that we'd be more lucky on that account if we accelerate right here." He then pressed the gas, and watched the speedometer as it rose up to forty and past. He then turned around at quite a distance away from the garage, above the street, and flew straight towards the garage, rapidly accelerating up to fifty, sixty, and seventy miles per hour.

The inventor just faintly registered the locals waving at them below as the time machine flew past eighty and with that past the garage, then hit eighty-eight miles per hour. Once more, the DFSCUPCIF fluxed, the electricity in front of the bus went all together and one more universe was left behind as the dimensional travellers skipped realities.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Take a look at the disclaimer for Chapter Three. **

**Author's Note: **Final chapter. I was getting sick of writing all these author's notes and things, but we're finally done. Good luck with reading this and not falling asleep. Like Chapter Three, this one and 4 are not meant to be depressing, however the bad situation for the characters hasn't changed much at the end. If you think I shouldn't have left them this way, read Heaven Or Hell, if you can manage it after such a long read. You'll understand what I mean, then.

Please read down to the end, and leave a nice lengthy review, if you can!

**Chapter Five**

Saturday, April 2, 1988  
12:40 P.M.  
Hill Valley, California

When the bus appeared above one more version of Hill Valley, Doc immediately noticed something. The garage, that had been abandoned for three years in the previous reality and destroyed in their reality, was still there, meaning that they were not home, but it was full of life – the lights were on, and a car – the DeLorean, Doc noticed – was parked in the driveway. That would probably mean that the Local Emmett Brown had either never married like all of his counterparts and therefore had seen no need to move, or that the local him had not had the expenses to move. Whatever the solution to the problem was, Doc did not like either of them.

In the back, Marty was having similar problems. He sighed deeply, as he looked out of the window to the still-standing garage. "We're not home this time, are we?" he asked, the question more a statement than a question. "Man, I hate this kind of travelling… not only are we stuck, there's no way to contact someone for help because the whole problem is that we can't get access to home."

"I must admit, that is rather annoying" Doc said, sighing. "Though if it cheers you up a bit – we have been making some bits of progress. Not much, but I think we can assume this is progress."

"What?" Marty asked, yawning. "I don't see anything progressive at all. We're still not home, no one seems to be able to help us, and worst of all, the system keeps insisting that everything's just fine, which it obviously isn't!"

"Well, think about this" Doc said. "When we first started dimension hopping without intending to do so, we ended up in a world where my house did not exist. In the next world, the previous one, it did exist, but both it and the garage were not being lived in. In this world, the garage is obviously occupied, so maybe in the next world, my house is being lived in, and in another next world, Clara, the kidsand_ I _are living there."

Marty pondered that for a moment. "That does make sense somehow" he muttered. "So, what are you going to do now? Travel through dimensions twice again in a row and then land back home?"

"No" Doc said, the answer disappointing Marty quite a bit. "I do not want to have the chance that in reality, we're not home, which would be disappointing a lot to both of us, and that this or the other world was just the dimension in which a me lived that could help us get home right away. I don't want to risk anything, Marty, and I hope you'll agree with me."

"I do" Marty muttered, grumpily, "but no more than just a bit. I was just hoping that we could get home soon – why did you even suggest it if you were going to turn down your own idea anyway?" That didn't really make much sense to him.

"I didn't exactly turn down my own idea" Doc said. "I just told you it would be better to explore more options – and one of them is this universe." He looked down. "Do you think my other self lives here, Marty? That DeLorean down there looks familiar, but if it was a time machine, I'd know better than to park it in plain sight…"

Marty joined his friend at the window, stared at the DeLorean, then turned to Doc again. "I think you live here" he said, thoughtfully. "Wouldn't that mansion still be there if you would not live here? I mean, it was thanks to your experiments on physics that it burned down. You wouldn't have all those weird chemical things in the house if you weren't a scientist. Of course, it could've been another scientist or just a chemist who lived here, but that would be a little too much of a coincidence." He stared at the familiar empty sight, where in 1955 had been a huge mansion. "How did it burn down, anyway?" he asked. "The mansion, I mean?"

Doc sighed. "It was a smallish accident out in the mansion lab" he said. "I had some problems with the kind of engine to use for the DeLorean. I knew it would have to be plutonium, but I was trying to look for an alternative way to fuel the thing that was less dangerous and still efficient. I stayed up until one A.M. before I finally turned in. However, I'd left some chemicals there, and my window was still open. A wind knocked the chemicals over, they mixed and created fire. If I hadn't woken up at two-thirty because I was thirsty and smelled the fire, I would've been killed for sure, taking everything valuable I had with me into the grave. But I did wake up, and once I realized what was going on, I first tried to extinguish the flames. Once that didn't work, I called the fire department at two-fifty, then grabbed everything valuable I had around, including your letter, some money, some inherited things from my parents and some notes for the time machine and headed out to the garage at around three. The fire remained burning for a long time afterwards, but I was safe, and by six AM, the whole mansion had burned down, as the fire department had failed to extinguish it as well. I was alive – but Copernicus, whom I had forgotten, had died along with the mansion."

"How did you forget him?" Marty asked. "I thought you liked Copernicus."

"I do – I mean, I did" Doc said, sighing and almost crying. "He was in the attic around that time, as I'd just bought some time travel equipment and I didn't want him to run around it. I managed to take the equipment along on my way out, but I didn't manage to do the same with Copernicus. The next time I saw him, he was nothing but a blackened body. Poor, poor Copernicus…" He winced, thinking back of that time.

Marty patted Doc on the back. "So, not to be annoying and not caring for your feelings about that, but what are we going to do now?" he asked. "We do want to get home, so can't we just swing by those us-es below and ask them if they can fix the machine?"

Doc thought about that for a moment, having cleared his face with a handkerchief. "You know, I actually figured, maybe we should split up."

Marty frowned. "Why should we do that?" he asked, a bit confused. "Can't we just stay here and see what happens like each time? I don't want you to leave when I'm away…"

"I won't, I promise" Doc said. "Honestly. But I just figured, why shouldn't we split up? If you go to your house, and I'll swing by my home, we would double our chances. That would come rather in handy, I think. Don't you agree?"

Marty considered that for a few moments, then nodded. "I suppose so" he said. "I just wanted to make sure that you wouldn't leave before I was back – not that you would ever do that, but the idea of being trapped in a strange world isn't really nice." He looked down again. "Are we landing now?"

Doc nodded, and carefully manoeuvred the bus to the ground. He opened the door, and let Marty out. "From here, it should be no more than half a mile to your home. You should be able to make that in ten minutes on foot." He looked at Marty. "Let's see… I'll drop by your house to pick you up at four-thirty P.M.? If my other self is able to fix the train, it will naturally take longer, but then I'll call your alternate parents. Everything should be fine, one way or another."

"Right" Marty said, nodding. "See you, Doc." He started walking off towards the McFly house of this world.

Doc stared after his friend, as Marty walked down the street of JFK Drive. As Marty had disappeared out of sight, the inventor looked up at the garage that was standing right in front of him, and let out a huge sigh. There they went again – once more explaining who they were, where they came from, why they needed their help, and what was wrong with the stupid machine, and then they had to go on one more fixing round. The inventor figured that when they got home, he should give serious thought to the idea of destroying the dimensional travelling machine. The DFSCUPCIF was pretty amazing, and it was enjoyable from time to time, but in the end, it turned out to be disaster all over again, as here they were, trapped in an unfamiliar world and about to talk to an unfamiliar version of themselves – if Local Doc even lived here, of course.

The inventor sighed, concentrated deeply on his mission, and finally walked up to the front door of the local inventor. Everything looked similar to how he remembered it being, and as he stood in front of the garage doors, he got a familiar sense of déjà vu, as if entering home again after having been away from it for years. He tried to get himself to concentrate, and knocked on the door.

After a few seconds, Emmett Brown opened the door, gasped, and almost fainted. "Great Scott!" he called out. "You're me!" The inventor stared at his counterpart, mouth open and closing again and his eyes moving rapidly. "You can't be here!" he insisted. "I destroyed the time machine almost three years ago, in 1985!"

_There goes my hope for good luck, _Doc thought. He cleared his throat, and turned at the dumb-founded Emmett, figuring that, even if the local could not help him, Doc could at least be polite enough to explain his presence and not leave his counterpart behind in a very confused state of mind. "I'm not you" he said, softly. "I could've been you, but I am not. I'm a you from an entirely alternate reality, another dimension." He stared at his counterpart's eyes. "Do you recognize the term?"

"In – in theory" Emmett muttered, staring at his other self like if he was someone who'd just told him the world was going to end in ten seconds. "I never expected to encounter someone from another one, though. Great Scott, another me…"

"You do believe my story, don't you?" Doc asked. If the local didn't, he was going to give the matter of going on with telling things hard thoughts. He was sort of getting sick of telling the same story all over again."

To his relief, Emmett shook his head almost immediately. "Oh, no, I believe you – which man would be able to not believe the evidence that is right in front of his face? If it was some stranger who said it, I would've sincerely doubted it, but you are me, obviously. You can come in – just wait a second so I can tell Susan the story so it doesn't scare her. She's little over three months into her pregnancy now, and I don't want her to be so scared that anything bad happens to the baby."

Doc nodded, wondering who Susan was, and Emmett headed inside. He returned after what was for Doc about a minute of waiting and speculating who exactly Susan might be, possibilities varying from the inventor's wife to his daughter or granddaughter, or even Jennifer's local counterpart, who, for some reason, was named differently than her counterpart from Doc's world was. The possibilities were endless, after all. Doc decided not to think about it too much, and faced his counterpart, who had an obviously excited smile on his face, apparently not used to encountering interdimensional visitors and enjoying every second of it. "You can come in, now" he said. "I told Susan, and she's very shocked, but she's pretty anxious to meet you."

Doc smiled, still wondering about Susan but curious enough to enter. The instant he entered the garage, though, he felt comforted. Everything looked just like normal, like it had been before 1985… if not for the mention of Susan, he'd have thought the time circuits were failing on him and they'd really travelled to their home dimension in the past instead. Feeling somewhat relaxed, he sat down.

Only to feel like his eyes were falling out of his head a few moments later. A beautiful woman entered, and smiled at him. She remembered Doc very much of Clara, except for the eye and hair colour. "Great Scott!" he muttered, softly. He wasn't really attracted to her, not really, but she was very pretty. Suddenly, he got the strong urge to be back home again and face the real Clara. This woman – Doc was sure this had to be Susan – was making him feel incredibly homesick.

The woman – Susan – chuckled. "Hi" she said. "So you're the other Emmett?" She extended her hand and shook it with the inventor. "I'm Susan Clayton, local Emmett's wife. So, you're from another universe?"

Emmett ignored the last comment, only focusing on the woman, whom now was confirmed that it was Susan, and her surname especially. "Clayton" he whispered. "As in Clara Clayton?" He felt himself suddenly dizzy in his stomach.

Susan nodded. "Yeah, Clara Clayton was my great-great-grandaunt" she said. "The sister of my great-great-grandmother, Maria." She giggled. "You know, my Emmett asked the exact same question when we first met – if I was related to the Clayton that fell into Clayton Ravine."

There it was again, the confirmation of his wife's perishing into the ravine so long ago, erased in his world but around in this reality. "I suppose," he said, "but that was not the reason I asked that." He took a deep breath, deciding to be blunt after all – no use to waste time, especially if this was his counterpart's wife. "In our world, Clara Clayton, whom I rescued from falling into the ravine, is my wife."

Susan gasped, Emmett, who entered, looked near-fainting. "How?" Susan asked, pale.

Doc smiled, thinking back of that event. "It's a long story" he said. "Marty and I were back to 1955 – yes, to November twelfth – in order to get a book back from Biff Tannen – if you haven't had that occur, I'd rather not speak about it, as the world created from it was quite bad – and after we had burned the book, I got struck by lightning in mid-air. I was zapped back to the first of January 1885, and spent the next months trying to repair the time machine. Finally, I gave up, buried the DeLorean in a mine, wrote a letter to Marty to be delivered on the night of the thunderstorm, and I told him to go home and destroy the time machine."

"Did he listen?" Emmett asked, curiously. "I don't think our Marty from before would've taken it so well if I was trapped there in the past."

Doc frowned at the 'before' comment, but said nothing. "He didn't take it well – or at least, if he did, then his perspective of taking something well is entirely different from mine" he commented. "He found my tombstone in 1955, as apparently I'd been shot by Buford Tannen six days after I wrote the letter, on September seventh 1885, but I think going back in time to get me was something he would've done anyway. So my '55 self fixed the DeLorean and Marty headed back in time to save me. Only, thanks to running into Indians, the fuel line was broken, and after a few days, when we'd finally figured out a way to get back home by pushing it up with a steam train, we were out by the ravine to investigate the instant we would reach 88, as we were pushing it up there, and then, we heard a woman screaming for help in a carriage which was pulled by horses gone wild. We headed over to save her, which we managed to do at the last moment, and when I saw Clara face to face, I was in love at first sight immediately." He smiled at the memory, then blushed. "Sorry, that was a rather quick summary of events, wasn't it? I'm sorry, but I'm not very much in the mood to tell stories like that. After all, we've been hopping through dimensions for quite some time now, and there's no guarantee of when we're going to stop."

Emmett frowned. "We?" he repeated. "You're not the only one hopping through other worlds?"

Doc shook his head. "No – Marty is along with me" he said. "I called him over on the initial test, then intending to just visit two worlds – but that was before the system went on to do strange things. No matter how many times we put in the coordinates of our home, we keep ending up in foreign worlds. This world is the fifth we visit, and that's much to me, even if we didn't stay in the third dimension for more than half an hour, and we didn't see anybody there, let alone myself or Marty's counterpart."

Emmett frowned again. "You mean, you and Marty are still friends, then?" he asked in a voice both confused and hopeful.

"Yeah…" Doc said, starting to feel less easy with the second. "You mean you aren't, here? Not anymore?"

Emmett sighed, sadly, and shook his head. "No, I'm afraid not" he said. "The day Marty woke up from getting that injury when racing Needles, we had a talk with less than positive outcomes. He was furious at me for not stopping that accident, and I was mad at him for being mad at me, while he was the one to chose to race Needles. Finally, I headed out of the room and went back home. Aside from me briefly coming along to visit on his eighteenth birthday, and him showing up sitting in the back at my wedding last year, I have not seen him ever since. It's been almost two years since I last spoke a word with him, actually."

Doc frowned. "Interesting" he said. "My Marty and I have no such problems. In fact, we're still every bit as close as we were since the day we first met in 1975. Of course, there also is the fact that, in our world, that Rolls Royce incident never happened in the first place."

Emmett gasped. "What?"

"It never happened" Doc repeated. "I did find out about it when I first visited the future, yes, but after coming out of that incident with Buford Tannen back in 1885, who actually challenged my Marty to a duel in front of the Palace Saloon, he changed his mind about being called 'chicken'. He therefore avoided that Rolls Royce accident, without even knowing it was coming, and he and Jennifer are off for a happy future. Last time I visited the future, Marty will be discovered in early January, 1991, which is almost three years away, and will grow in the early nineties to become a world famous rock star, like he always wanted to be. He certainly has a happy future ahead of him."

"Then he's lucky, compared to my Marty" Emmett said, frowning. "My Marty is on the road to the nobody he was in 2015, and from what the current year looks like, I think it's safe to assume that he is going to end up just like he was when I last saw him there, a depressed man who lost everything. Chances are that, this time around, he's not even going to be willing to listen to my 1985 counterpart coming to visit. After all, while Marty was certainly mad at me in that world for not stopping the Rolls Royce accident, we were still in touch by the time I died in that timeline's 2003, which will hopefully not happen now after I've had that rejuvenation. There's no way to know for sure, though, as I destroyed the time machine."

"Don't be afraid" Doc said, smiling. "You'll be perfectly fine. The last time I saw myself in the future, I was alive and well in 2053. If your future is anything like mine, you should still be. The first rejuvenation grants you to live until at least the 2020s, I'm sure, and around that time, there should be the beginning rejuvenations around that will allow you to make it until 2053 like my future self will. I'm sure you'll continue to live a long and happy life, Local Emmett." He frowned. "Although I certainly don't envy you for not having Marty as your friend, anymore."

"I suppose you don't" Emmett said, sighing. "I would've rather return to my friendship with him as well – maybe I shouldn't have shouted at him. It was, after all, no more than understandable that Marty would be mad at me for taking the means to correct his mistake away. Then again, feeling sorry or not, the mistake still was his. He shouldn't have made it in the first place." The inventor sighed, unsure what to do right now.

"Don't feel too bad about everything, but don't be too mad either" Doc said. "You could make it up to him, if you want. Maybe he'd be interested in doing that. You were, after all, his friend for a long time. When did you meet your Marty, anyway? In 1975, like me?"

"That's right" Emmett confirmed. "When he was on a skateboard race with Needles, he swung his board out of control and hit me. I immediately recognized him from 1955, and I couldn't wait for 1985 to arrive. When it did, though, it did not live up to what I expected from it." He sighed, staring at the roof. "But maybe I'm just elaborating on my own problems too much. What's the matter with your time machine? If it won't travel through time normally anymore…"

"It does travel through time all right" Doc reminded him, figuring his local self's mind might've been distracted from that by the tension that the reminder of his former friend had called back. "It's just dimension travel that it's failing in. Every time we arrive in a new world, it tells us it's home – which it isn't." He sighed. "I wonder why it was even able to make those first two transits all right. If it fails, shouldn't it fail every time?"

"Maybe it did fail" Emmett suggested. "It could've just chosen random dimensions no matter what code you tapped in. You were expecting a different world, so seeing another dimension was no surprise to you then. When you really tried to head home, it still chose a different dimension – and that was when you realized something was going wrong drastically for the first time."

Doc sighed. "I suppose that's a very good possibility" he said, sighing. "I wish I had some more proof of it, though. But even if I had, it wouldn't help me out very much. The only thing that would help, is having another me look it over." He looked at Emmett. "Do you want to come? My previous counterpart wasn't able to fix it, but maybe you are…"

"I could at least give it a look" Emmett said, nodding. "It's no use to just tell me everything for nothing, while you could've better spent your and your Marty's time going off to look for another world." He looked around. "Speaking of which, where is your Marty? If your friendship is not strained, shouldn't he be here?"

"He should" Doc said, as they both stood up and walked out the door, "but I sent him off to his home to check on his counterpart. Two persons know more than one, after all. Therefore, I sent him to Lyon Estates. Does Local Marty still live there?"

"He does" Emmett said. "But I'm not sure if he'd be pleasantly amused by his counterpart arriving. Anything that has to do with time travel can remind him of me, and given the bad terms we're on now…" He sighed. "Well, he could get mad at your Marty. In case of which, your Marty – Visiting Marty, so to speak – will receive an unexpected surprise if he goes looking for a counterpart willing to help him, you and me with helping yourselves out."

* * * *

Marty McFly sighed deeply as he approached his home of this dimension. "Yet another me to confront" he muttered. "Hopefully also a me with a home in which I can have some sleep. I've been up ever since we first got into this dimension-hopping thing…" He sighed, as he crossed the street. "Well, I'll just keep my hopes up."

Marty walked right past the house's front door, instead heading for the gate, which was not locked, like it had been the last time he'd approached another version of his house, in the Biff-horrific version of Hill Valley. Well, that was at least positive. He smiled, opened the gate, and walked through the garden to enter his room.

The bedroom looked pretty much as he remembered it, with music posters around and stuff lying around in a messy way. Even his pillow looked like he had left it at home after a long night of sleeping in rather weird positions. The only thing that was not there was his guitar, which kind of surprised Marty. If his counterpart had a dream of being a rock star, which the music posters evidenced and the fact that everything else looked similar evidenced too, why wasn't there a guitar to play on?

The teen finally decided to shrug it off, and exited the room to head up into the hallway, gawking around at the alternate version of his home. All together, it looked pretty familiar, despite the fact that it was not home. _Weird_, he thought. _Well, at least it looks better than my Biff-horrific home – which I never really got a chance to see except for my room because I was so busy heading out of the house that I never cared. _He smiled, and headed down the stairs, wondering what the living room would be like in this world.

The room looked pretty similar to their own world, Marty decided, after looking around for a few moments. Everything down to the most insignificant detail was right, and if they hadn't seen the garage still okay, the teen would've figured that they were back home and that between now and the time he was last here, little over an hour and a half ago, Mom or Dad had just moved his guitar to some other place for some reason, probably 'cause Mom had to do the cleaning up. Marty smiled as he looked around, and then, he happened to look at the door just in time to see Jennifer come in, and frown at the sight of him.

"Marty!" she asked, both scolding and disappointed. "Aren't you supposed to be at that meeting with the old members of the Pinheads? You arranged for today to meet each other, didn't you! You told me yourself that you wouldn't be back until three PM! I know you are often late, but you had to be there at one P.M., and now it's one-o-six already and you haven't even left yet!"

Marty winced, wondering why his counterpart was at a meeting with the old members of the Pinheads – they were still together, right? – and why he wasn't at Doc's. But it didn't matter, right now – what did matter, was to answer Jennifer. "Um, well, you know" he started, smiling sheepishly. "I think I just happened to forgot. I, uh, was kind of busy with Doc and all."

Jennifer frowned deeper. "With Doc? You mean, you two made up?"

Marty now frowned too, rather shocked. "Made up?" he asked, forgetting for a moment that they were in another world. "What are you talking about? We're best friends!"

Jennifer shook her head, sadly. "Maybe you were some time ago, but you aren't now, not anymore. Ever since that fight once you broke your hand in that Rolls Royce race, you two haven't been the same again." She failed to notice Marty's gasp at the mention of the accident, and instead looked at Marty's right hand, lifted it up, and let it go. "You just have to give up all hope for your friendship to ever be restar-"

Suddenly, Jennifer gasped, as she processed what she'd just seen. Swifter than Marty could keep count off, she lifted up Marty's right hand again, thoroughly inspected it, and found that it looked perfectly fine, finer than even the best medicine could heal it. It was like the accident had never happened at all. "What the heck?" she called out, completely confused.

This was starting to feel a lot like that first trip to 2015. "Um, Jennifer" Marty started, half-expecting a Doc to show up with a sleep inducer, "I dunno how to tell you this, but I'm not who you think I am. I'm Marty, but from another dimension. Another universe."

Jennifer stared at him, gasped for a while, then turned to him. "All right, I'm not sure if I can believe you're sane anymore."

"You saw my hand" Marty argued. "It's intact, 'cause that race never happened where we came from. You have to know about time travel – if you didn't, it probably wouldn't be there, and then I would have never had a truck or chicken problem in the first place!"

Jennifer looked at him. "Okay, I do believe you now. This is weird, but it's got to be true."

"Thanks" Marty said, smiling. "What made you believe me?"

"The part about the chicken problem" Jennifer said. "You've never admitted it as a problem before, however Doc, your parents and I all insisted you had it, you got furious at the mention of the words. To see this complete turn-around now makes me refuse to believe that you are from this world, so your solution is an acceptable one." She peeked past Marty, who gasped at the weird reason for Jen to believe him. "If you're from another world in an invention of Doc's most likely, is Doc here too? If you never got into that accident, you should still be friends…"

"We are" Marty confirmed. "Doc is around here, but not at my house. When we split up to each find our own counterparts to help us, he decided to go to his counterpart's home, the garage, to check it out. Does, uh, Other Doc still live there?"

"He does" Jennifer confirmed, smiling, "and not on his own either. Doc, our Doc, married a local girl named Susan Clayton last year, and has been living with her ever since. In fact, as of now, Susan is pregnant."

Marty found himself be startled. "Really? My Doc's married to Clara Clayton – yeah, from Clayton Ravine – and he's been like that ever since 1976… or 1885, actually. He's got three kids: Jules, born 1977, Verne, born 1979, and Martin, named after me, who was born on November 12th of 1986 – right at 10:04 PM."

"Fascinating, I guess" Jennifer said. "I don't think my Marty and I ever expected Doc to even have a kid in the first place, but if in your universe, he has three… but did you say he married this Clara lady in 1976 or actually in some other time in the Old West? Had your Doc finished his time machine by 1976, then? In our universe, he didn't complete it until '85… October twenty-sixth, to be exact. That's where he first showed it up to my Marty, and Marty went to the fifties with it. Spent a week trying to get his parents to fall in love and to get back home by the lightning – "

"…bolt at the clock tower, I know" Marty finished. "That happened to me, too. No, what happened was that Doc stayed behind in the Old West on a trip there, accidentally, and once I got back to the future a train destroyed the machine so I couldn't go back. Doc built a time machine out of a train in the Old West and took nine years to build it – that's why the years are nine years out of synch. Doc didn't finish his time machine out of a train until 1894, and he, Clara and the kids moved back from 1895 to 1986. I was happy to see they were back, as I had missed Doc terribly."

Jennifer smiled. "Seems like you, and your Doc, have an interesting story to tell" she said. "I can't believe there's actually another universe, but I've got to believe it now, after the evidence I've seen and heard."

Marty winced. "I could hardly believe it either" he said, confidentially. "And I wish I still didn't believe, because it's trapping Doc and I hopping between different worlds without much hope of getting home, and if my other self really is as childish as you made him appear to be when you made that chicken problem comment…" He groaned. "I didn't really think I could ever act that childish. Then again, I was pretty much the same prior to 1985 in the new timeline… but the other me just never grew up! He's lucky no worse came from those things, seeing as he could've been killed in that race."

"Yeah" Jennifer said, nodding. "I really can't believe how easy to challenge he is. I would certainly react a lot different to that, than he does. Boy, he really doesn't have a solution to this and it doesn't even matter for him, does it? I'm staying with him because sometimes, he's still nice and friendly, but he can be grumpy. I think that, if I'd ever seen our family in 2015, he would've been exactly the same as I'm seeing him now." She then blushed. "Boy, I'm sorry, telling you these things while it's actually another you which I'm talking about… I feel bad about that, now."

"Don't be" Marty said. "I'm pretty used to calling other me's 'him' now, and to discuss them as such. But what I really noticed was something else." He looked at her. "Did you really not get a look at your family in twenty-fifteen?"

Jennifer shook her head. "Nope" she said. "Just as I was waking up from that sleep inducer, Doctor Brown arrived to pick me up. I fully regained consciousness about a minute or two later, and then, I was in the car, and we were on our way up to eighty-eight and to travel back to 1985. Marty told me about the secret, then, and I saw flying cars around me so I would've been foolish if I'd not believed him. But we never saw ourselves there, not even for a second. Marty only got to see his son, and I got to see nothing but the interior of the DeLorean and whatever view you got of the outside from there."

Marty smirked. "That's very different from what my Jen told me" he said. "She was picked up, yeah, but by cops, and not by Doc. Doc and I arrived about a minute later and followed the cops to our future home, in Hilldale. You woke up there, and hid in the bathroom while looking at Older Me, Marlene – she's our future daughter – Junior and my folks at age seventy-seven conversing. You also watched Future Me getting fired due another chicken problem thing. Just as you were about to leave, you saw your future self and fainted, and Doc and I took you back to the DeLorean and to 1985. And what followed after that, was a completely different and more complicated story… but you really don't remember any of this? Not even the cops picking you up?"

Jennifer shook her head. "Nope" she repeated. "None of these things ever happened to me. If I'd seen this, I would've persuaded Marty more not to do it when I saw him get challenged into that Rolls Royce incident the next day, and I wish I had. I was out for over twenty hours already, and Marty didn't woke up until six P.M. on the next day, Monday the twenty-eighth. That accident really ruined his life, and I doubt he's ever going to be somebody now…" Was there a slight hesitate, a knowing hesitate, in her voice?

"I feel sorry for you" Marty said. "I really do. I am just glad that I never made such a mess out of my life. I really could've had it ten times worse, if I have to believe your story – which I definitely do, as I don't believe you would ever lie to me. Holy shit, that accident going through…" He sighed. "But why didn't Doc do anything? Didn't he want to stop it?" He couldn't imagine his friend ever not doing such a thing, as he was convinced that the inventor would finally give in to his pleas to stop it, but maybe the local version of Doc wasn't quite as good befriended with Local Marty as his Doc was. It was possible, of course.

"Oh, I do think he wanted to stop it" Jennifer said. "But finally, he gave in to the fear of destroying the space-time continuum and destroyed the time machine as he had been planning to do ever since he got back. If he stopped the incident, how could he find out about it in the first place?"

"Maybe other me could pretend to be poor in the future" Marty suggested. "That's a good idea for what I'll be doing, too. If I and the local me pretend to have our hands broken and beg the younger Doc for help, he'd still be doing the same things as earlier on, not knowing that we're just faking it. Also, we could do the same with Jennifer – our Jennifer – visiting our house on October twenty-first of that same year."

Jennifer smiled. "I'm kind of curious to hear what the other me lived through in your universe at our home in the future" she said. "What exactly did happen? You did give me the main summary, but not the details… which I'm pretty interested in, too."

"Well" Marty started, not sure if he should tell every single detail as Local Jennifer wanted, or if he should just tell her that she shouldn't know. He didn't want to be as stubborn as Doc was on these subjects, and he could see the other Jen really wanted to know. Besides, if his other self was going to be a loser with his hand broken, he'd try every little bit of it to help Local Jen to get Local Marty to change his life and do something that did not involve guitar playing, and still make something out of himself. He really felt sorry for other Jen, and even to an extent for his childish local self. Therefore, he had to tell something. "Well, you see…"

At that moment, Marty heard the door go open some distance away. George McFly entered, a bright smile on his face. "Hi, Marty!" he greeted, not noticing the teenager hiding his hand. "And hi Jennifer. What's Marty still doing here? He is supposed to be at that reunion, isn't he?"

Marty nodded, shyly. "Um, yeah, I suppose" he muttered. "I'd better be going now, yeah. See you, Jennifer." He waved to his girlfriend, and then headed up to his bedroom. "I'm just gonna get my stuff, Dad."

"That's fine" George assured him. "Just don't forget that meeting you still have to attend. You know your friends won't be too happy if you miss it. They were before, when you wanted to be at home studying a book and therefore showed up half an hour late." He sighed. "Marty, you really should get over that sadness of yours. It's been two-and-a-half years since you broke your hand in that Rolls Royce race. You should try to get somewhere with your life, not spend the rest of it complaining and crying. We are there for you now, but we won't be able to support you forever, and we won't be there forever. I've just turned fifty, Lorraine turned that three months ago, and even if we reach the healthy age of ninety, you'll have to learn to support yourself Marty. Things can't go on like this forever and you know it. Jennifer knows it, too. She's tried to talk you out of this. Why haven't you listened to her, yet?"

Marty winced, knowing that this was the kind of conversation he'd not looked forward to – one that concerned the other him. "Um, I think I forgot" he lied, unsure what else to say. "I will try to remember to fight this, though. But now, I really have to go." He hoped he hadn't said enough to get the other him into trouble, although Local Marty almost deserved it for acting so stupid. Then still, he didn't _really_ want his other self to get into only more trouble. He just didn't respect Local Marty's behaviour.

George nodded, as Marty headed upstairs. He heard his father call something after him about himself going to leave for an extra work shift now. Good – then he at least wouldn't have to cope with Dad bickering about a Pinheads reunion he was supposed to attend, and where his other self most likely was, now. Now, he could perhaps have a look at his other self's room.

As he'd seen before, the bedroom was just like his normal bedroom except for a lack of a guitar, and as he looked at the bed, Marty felt the urge for going into it growing. It was around one-thirty P.M. now, but it was two-thirty A.M. in their world, and it was long past bedtime, even for a college student. Resisting the urge to get under the blankets, knowing that his somewhat jerky other self would be more than a little surprised if he found another version of himself lying on his bed, Marty grabbed a book from one of the shelves, and found it be his diary from 1985. Suddenly feeling interested, Marty opened and started reading, figuring that reading something that belonged to another him wasn't really stealing.

The diary, or so the teen found out, was pretty much the same to what he remembered from home, or at least in the beginning. Therefore, a bored Marty quickly skipped those parts, and eventually arrived at the month October. Feeling the excitement grow as the pages went past and the day of Doc's biggest experiment came closer, he went on, and finally turned to Saturday, October 26, 1985.

_Saturday, October 26, 1985, at 2:35 A.M. _

_What happened today, or maybe I should say the past week, is pretty weird. As I wrote yesterday, I went out to meet Doc at the mall. He showed me his new experiment, and it was a time machine out of a DeLorean! Honestly, he just put Einie inside it, let it drive up to us, and then it vanished! Apparently, his time machine works with time circuits or something like that, and you set it to the date you want to go, drive it up to 88, and vanished. Also, it's powered on plutonium, which I found to be disturbing once some Libyan terrorists showed up to shoot Doc about stealing their plutonium, and when they tried to shoot me too, I escaped with the DeLorean, only I accidentally travelled back to 1955, where I crashed into a barn and was narrowly able to escape kicking over a pine tree and riding off to the road which led towards Hill Valley. I stopped when I saw Lyon Estates being there but the homes hadn't been_

Marty sighed as he stopped reading halfway and turned the page. This was all similar – he didn't really need to read this. What he was looking for was actual information on what was so different in this world that was not there in his. He sighed, flipped some more pages as the October twenty-sixth entry was quite big and looked at the next entry, which seemed to have been written that night, the night he'd been planning to go to the lake, and apparently, that was right where Local Marty was.

Visiting Marty sighed for a moment, wondering why his other self had managed to get to the lake, since even if they'd returned to the right '85, they would've returned to 9 PM, then looked at the entry and started to read again.

_Saturday, October 26, 1985, at 11:53 P.M. (I think so)_

_Today was a pretty interesting day, I admit. After the whole time travel incident, I woke up at around ten-thirty, and I thought the whole thing was a nightmare, which I could've found out it wasn't if I'd read this book. I walked into the kitchen and saw everything was different. Dave's a business man, Mom is healthy, thin and likes to tennis with Dad, and Linda has boyfriend(s)! (I don't think she really has changed too much though, although she is somewhat thinner) Also, Dad apparently is a science-fiction writer and has just published his new book, called 'A Match Made In Space' and Biff is a car wax guy whom Dad pushes around. I was fascinated at the whole thing, and the best of all was that I got a new truck in the process. _

_When I went to check it out, Jenny showed up. She's still the same. We were about to kiss when Doc appeared in his DeLorean, telling us to come back with him to the future because apparently, something was wrong with our kids. We got in, and Doc flew the car away – yes, I said flew – and into the future, October 21st 2015 to be exact, that's what he said. We arrived in the middle of other flying cars on a road in the sky, and soon Doc flew us down to an alley near the Square, but not after first knocking Jennifer out with an alpha rhythm thing, saying she was asking too much questions about the future, which might've been true. _

_Anyway, Doc gave me some future clothes and finally told me what exactly was wrong. My future son, Marty Junior, a look-alike who apparently is an unconfident wimp was pushed into a robbery by Griff Tannen, Biff's grandkid. I had to pose as Junior to tell Griff 'no', which I did at Lou's Aerobics Studio, called the 'Café 80s' in the future, although both Doc and I found out it's not really '80s, not really done very well at least. Anyway, after some business with Junior showing up after all, I said 'no' to Griff, and was about to leave when the guy called me a chicken, and that's when the weirdness started. _

_You see, up until that moment, I _never _remembered having any issue with being called chicken before. Sure, I was annoyed, but I never really reacted. But apparently, at that point my 'new' self took over my brain, basing his chicken issues on memories of Dad being confident, while how hard I sought, the only memory of Dad was as a wimp, except for that morning of course. It was really weird, and I wonder what Doc would have to say about it. _

_But anyway, I reacted, and Griff got a little angry with me. He actually grew, and I tried to punch him, but some bionic implant things he's got inside him blocked my punch, or so Doc said (the part about Griff having those implants, I mean). I then punched him in the private area, he let go, and I threw the guy into his gang, and headed off, took a little girl's 'hoverboard' and started repeating the whole thing that I said yesterday that happened in '55. The hoverboard was cool, but Griff and his gang had boards too, and I just narrowly escaped them, but then I went out of control and flew over the pond in front of the Future Courthouse, and I ended up being trapped at about three or four feet from the edge because the board didn't work on water. Griff, of course, had a board that did, and he and his gang flew towards me. At the last moment, I jumped into the water, Griff hit a stone with his swing instead of me and he and the gang ended up flying through the air, and through the windows into the Courthouse. I got above water, and headed through the Courthouse Mall back to the front of the pond, where I was confronted by some guy called Terry. I knew him from '55 and '85 both – he was a car mechanic in the past, he is working at Texaco now, but in the future, he donates for the clock tower. So, he asked me to 'thumb a hundred bucks' or whatever that is, and as I'm about to respond there's a newsflash about the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series against the Miami Gators. I was surprised Miami even had a team, let alone that good to be second, but Terry started talking to me about how it was a hundred to one shot and how he wanted to go back to the beginning of the season to put some money on the Cubbies. And then it hit me. _

_Right when we first arrived in the future, I'd seen somewhat of a book lying in the window of an antique store. It was called 'Gray's Sports Almanac 1950-2000'. I didn't react on it then, but I sure as heck did at the moment Terry said that. That almanac was the way to get rich – bet on things I knew the answer to. So, I headed over to the store, bought that almanac by thumbing to a plate, and then I headed out with my prize, just as Doc arrived. Luckily he didn't see me as he landed on the street, and I watched with him as his newspaper changed from my kid getting arrested to Griff and gang getting arrested 'cause of them breaking the Courthouse windows. Doc was happy, and once we were in the car, after a few near-incidents with me almost dropping the almanac, we picked up Jennifer just in time before the police could get there, and we headed over to the skyway. Doc started worrying about what if my other self hit us and how that could create a paradox (something that ends the universe) and he finally concluded that he should destroy the time machine. I reluctantly agreed, but I did get him to change the time to 11:30 so Jen and I would have enough time to go to the lake. Once that was done, we hit eighty-eight and vanished back to '85. _

_We arrived outside of town and flew over to my house, where Doc dropped us off, and then he headed over to his lab. I told Jennifer about the almanac, and then I headed inside. Seeing as it wasn't even noon yet and sure not time yet to go to the lake, I started reading in my diary, curious to whatever things the other me could've experienced. I've been doing that for a few hours, and I slept a bit from two to four, and finally, it was five PM and Jennifer and I headed out for the lake, where we arrived about an hour later. We set up our sleeping bags, and we watched the sun lower, and did a few things that we shouldn't mention here, but we didn't really do naughty things. Anyway, finally Jen and I decided that maybe we should prepare to go to sleep, but we are going to gaze up to the stars for an hour or something like that. This visit is being absolutely wonderful, so far, and I think that it's going to be even better as time passes. _

_Oh, Jennifer called – I have to stop, she says. Well, I guess that's it, then, see you tomorrow, when Jennifer and I will be safely back at home, and I can go and start studying in the almanac from 2015! _

Marty looked up. He didn't really need to read the next pages – he knew what it would be like. It would be about the Rolls Royce race and how it went so drastically wrong and how Marty had been injured. There was no need to read information he already knew, but there were definitely some interesting things in his other self's bedroom that required studying, like the fact that separated other Marty McFly from him, the silly detail that had been mentioned in the diary, and that neither himself at that time, or the local now, could've ever imagined being the cause to such a difference. For a moment, Marty found himself to be stupid, and resisted the urge to slap himself for failing to pay attention to something like that like his more alert counterpart had done. But judging from his other self's current state, Marty was sure that if his life had turned out to be like Other Marty's, he would've sincerely regretted the things that led up to this present, which he figured the other him did, too.

The teen looked at the diary once more, before putting it aside and moving over to the other books that were on the shelf, like his 1986 diary and his 1987 one. He kind of figured the important things weren't going to be coming until 1989 though, the time when he would first really be able to use the thing that separated this dimension so thoroughly from his: Gray's Sports Almanac.

While in their world, Marty had lost it after accidentally turning it around to cause it to fall out onto Doc's feet, and it had eventually ended it's life after being owned by a younger Biff Tannen on the night of November twelfth, 1955, at the bottom of a bucket, where it had gone up in flames, in this world none of that all had happened. Somehow, Local Marty had managed to resist the urge to grab the bag with the almanac inside at the side he wanted to, and it had not fallen out onto the street, and due to that lack of delay, they'd been able to pick up Jennifer before the cops got to her, and had gone home straight away without any 1985-A, 1955 and 1885 experience. Therefore, there had been no Seamus McFly to convince him to do else, no Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen who wanted to shoot him, no Clint Eastwood tombstone that had told him that if he went through with this he'd end up in a grave, and therefore, he had still felt every bit as challenged by Needles' race proposal as he had in the original timeline after the jerk called him a 'chicken', and he'd raced the guy, broke his hand on the edge of a Rolls Royce, and lost all ability to play the guitar good ever again. His life in here was horrible, and now he realized that, Marty wouldn't trade his life for this one even if they gave him a million if he did it.

Marty sighed, looked down, and read through all of the diaries. It was kind of hard to keep himself focused, considering his tired feelings, but finally, he managed to get through all of them and keep on reading. He finally finished at four-o-five, just twenty-five minutes before Doc had told him he would be picked up. Marty sighed, placed the diaries aside, and got up, about to head downstairs and, at four-twenty-five, outside to await his best friend's arrival from down there.

Only then, just as Marty was about to open the door to outside, the door gave away, and he stared right into the face of his local counterpart, the one he'd been thinking about when reading the diaries all through the afternoon: "Other" Marty McFly.

Other Marty stepped back, startled, clearly not expecting this. "Holy _shit_!" he hissed, his face going pale within the time of just a few seconds. "You're me! Why? And what are you doing here? How did you even get here, the time machine was completely destroyed by Doc, or at least the parts that made it work!"

The visitor sighed. "Yeah, I've heard this before" he said, in a bored way. "Or at least, part of it. Let me get this straight: I am you, yeah, but I'm the you from another dimension, and in my universe, Doc has not destroyed the time machine, and we still use it, and also, in my world, I have not broken my hand, and Doc and I are still friends, which according to Jennifer we aren't here, and I think I know as well as you do why that is. I know your diaries, I am you, you can't, you shouldn't lie to me. I don't like to get too much of a first impression on someone, but I do want to skip the introductions with you, as you're the same person as I am, just from another world, so let's get straight to the point. Tell me, other me, did you or did you not keep Gray's Sports Almanac 1950-2000 after buying it in the year 2015, on the date of October twenty-first to be exact?"

"Yeah" Local Marty said, still not grasping it all. "I don't get it. How can you be from another world? You're still friends with Doc?" He frowned. "And did that comment mean you never kept the almanac, but instead lose it? It was close, of course, but I made it. I can't believe I would've been ever so stupid to let it slip."

"It was too quick for me to react on time" Visiting Marty said, defending himself. "Besides, looking at how you and I both turned out, I do think that I was incredibly lucky that happened. Believe me, I wouldn't want to trade my life for yours, ever."

"Then what is your life?" Local Marty asked.

Visiting Marty smiled. "Good you ask, so I can tell you what you missed" he said. "First of all, my hand is not broken, as I never got into that stupid accident as I learnt to overcome my chicken problem long before that – and don't give me that nonsense about it not being a problem, 'cause it is. Second of all, I am still friends with Doc, and I still hang around with him on a regular bases, which you obviously haven't. Third of all, I haven't turned out to be such a childish teen that doesn't want to face the reality of his broken hand which has caused not only Doc but also Jennifer to take a step away from you, if even a bit. Your Doc's been married for… how long again?"

"Seven months" Local Marty said, grumpy.

"…seven months now, and have you ever looked him up to see how his wife was doing? I doubt you've even ever seen her in the first place! Do you even know what she looks like, huh?"

"Yeah, I do" Local Marty said, almost snapping at his counterpart. "I saw her during the wedding, and a few times before that. I know what she looks like. You just think I don't. You think I'm a complete asshole, don't you?" His voice rose. "But I'm not. I do care about other people. It's just that Doc didn't, or at least didn't care enough about me to make sure I did not ruin my life, and that's why we broke up, and not a fault on my part!"

"You call that not a fault on your part?" Visiting Marty argued back. "I do. If I had been yelling at Doc, it would be his right to say something back, and maybe we could've calmed down and talked naturally about it like friends, and maybe he'd agree to rebuild the time machine! In the first reality we visited, the DeLorean was rebuilt right from October '85 on, and it's a week away from being finished now! In this world, it wasn't even destroyed, just the time travel parts were, so if you had been reasonable and talked things out well, your hand might've been fixed already, and even if it wasn't, you at least wouldn't have lost your best friend! But you did! And it was all because of yourself, and you know it! Why were you stupid enough to get into that stupid race in the first place! Why did you do that, huh?"

"He called me a chicken!" Local Marty protested, however he felt a little blown away from the visitor's load of comments. "I couldn't refuse then!"

"You were a chicken, just because you did not refuse!" Visiting Marty snapped. "Don't you see? If you had refused, where would it leave you? Everything would've been fine! Sure, Needles would've teased you for some time afterwards, but aside from that, he would've eventually shut up, and you would've never raced that car!" He stared at his counterpart who was feeling too overwhelmed to say anything. "And you know what? After you did those stupid things and got Doc so far that he stopped your friendship after you shouted at him, starting it, you also planned to use that stupid sports almanac! And don't tell me I'm lying, 'cause I sure as heck ain't! I am you, and I read your diary! You are planning to use that almanac, and I'm going to stop you! Don't you know how irresponsible you are acting, you, you…"

At that moment, Visiting Marty caught sight of himself in the mirror, and stopped in the middle of his load of insults. What he saw was exactly what he'd accused the local of being: someone who'd obviously lost his temper and was shouting no-good insults at his friends to cover up what he himself had done. The visitor turned red. "Oh man" he muttered, almost chuckling. "I'm acting exactly like you did in '85!"

Local Marty smirked. "I noticed, too" he said, softly. "And you're right, maybe I've been sort of an asshole. But I'm just not ready to confront Doc and ask him to make up with me. What if he said no? After all those pep-talks from you, it then would not make any difference, like, at all…"

"You're acting like Teen Dad now" Visiting Marty said, laughing. "Really, Other Me, you gotta see this as a smaller thing, not a matter of life or death. I can understand that you don't like being turned down on a get-back-to-being-friends attempt – I would not like that, either. But you have to accept that from before, or everything will be all right. Being so over-reacting as you are and I was to being called 'chicken' is bad, but being a wimp isn't good either. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, you know?"

The local smirked. "Yeah, I sure remember that" he said. "Thanks for your advice on everything. I suppose that it'll still be up to Doc to make the first step, I guess. But then still, at least, if he wants to make up, I won't turn him down. Thanks for all your great advice, other me. Like Dad, I'll try to never forget it."

"Thanks" Visiting Marty said. "You know, after Doc found out about the almanac in our world, he threw it away, and as we were off to save Jennifer from running into her older self, which eventually did happen but didn't have fatal consequences, since we were to late to get her before the cops did, Old Biff had found it and stole the machine. Next thing we knew, we thought we time travelled back to '85 but ended up in Hell Valley. Biff was rich and had an hotel on top of the Courthouse called Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise, he was married to Mom and had killed Dad in '73, committed Doc in '83, indirectly made Dave a bum and Linda a prostitute and he sent me off to boarding schools in Switzerland. That reality was all because of the almanac, and I wouldn't want the 2015 of this world to look like that. The saying 'power corrupts – absolute power corrupts absolutely' is really fitting here, and I wouldn't want you to turn out like that. You understand?"

Local Marty nodded, pale. "Yeah, I do" he muttered. "If I'd seen something like that, I'd also want to make sure it never happened. Holy shit… I can't believe Biff turned out like that! He was pretty evil before Dad knocked him out, yeah, but even then, I couldn't see him as really a murderer, and he's considerably nicer, now. He really killed Dad?"

"And tried to do the same with me when it turned out I knew too much" Visiting Marty said, nodding sadly. "Would've succeeded too, if it hadn't been for Doc showing up. So I jumped off the roof we were on, onto the DeLorean, and I then showed up again right in front of a dumb-founded version of Biff's face. Which worked into our advantage – Doc had the nice ability to knock him out with the gull wing door since he wasn't alert enough, and we left that world."

Local Marty smiled. "Cool" he said. "I wouldn't want to have lived through that horror reality, but it would've been kind of cool to see Doc knock out Rich Biff… if that asshole really shot Dad, he completely deserved it."

Visiting Marty nodded. "You're right" he said. "You know, I…"

What he wanted to say was cut off when he heard the familiar sound of a bus landing in the street, and as he looked at the alarm clock next to Local Marty's bed, he saw it was 4:29 PM. "Sounds like our trip to this world is over" he muttered sighing. "Too bad – I was just going to ask you if I could sleep on your bed. I didn't want to sleep there and have you walk in on me sleeping, but now I figured it wouldn't hurt… it really is almost five-thirty A.M. tomorrow for me now. Well, maybe we'll get somewhat of a chance in the next universe. What's probably positive for me is that Doc, seeing as his counterpart lives in such a small house, most likely did not get that chance either, so we're still matched up in time having rested and been awake, which helps when we arrive in the next reality and get to sleep, so one of us won't need extra sleep. Then again, Doc probably woke up earlier on the day we left, so a little extra sleep might actually do match things up…"

There was a loud sound that was obviously the horn of the bus, as an annoyed Doc was reminding him that they should go. "I'm probably talking too much" Visiting Marty said, chuckling. "I gotta go. You better stay here – it's best for people not to see both of us together."

"Yeah" Local Marty said. He then hugged his counterpart. "I'll miss you. Well, at least I can say I will try to do my best to get some progress done in getting Doc and I back to being friends again."

"That's what you should" Visiting Marty said, smiling. He then headed down the stairs, waving a few times at his local self, until he'd disappeared out of the local's sight. After that, he ran through the living room, ignored Dave and Linda sitting there, and got out through the front door and ran up through the street up to the bus.

As he entered the bus, Doc looked a slight tad annoyed at him. "Couldn't you get here sooner?"

"Sorry, Doc" Marty apologized. "I was… occupied, I suppose. Did you know that…"

"No time, Marty" Doc said. "We'll get there later. Right now, I just want to get out of here without being seen. We've attracted too much attention already, so it's better that we just head up to 88 and leave as soon as possible."

"But, Doc, I…"

"Marty, I believe you didn't entirely understand me" Doc said. "I said I needed to go, now. So, we'll leave. I can understand you want to tell me something, but we can save that for some other time. No protest, please." He then ignored his friend, and flew the time machine up through the skies. "Let's see… it's somewhere around four-thirty now, so maybe we should try to get forwards instead of backwards in time. If we want to try to get some sleep, we should perhaps arrive in the evening. So, let's see, it's four-thirty-nine now, so our destination will be at six-forty. That way, we'll be exactly eleven hours ahead on our normal schedule." He smiled at his friend, and input the time of arrival.

Marty just leaned back, as Doc shot up through the clouds, up to eighty-eight. Within a few seconds, the familiar sonic booms hit and the bright flash appeared. As it cleared down again, Marty could notice it had gotten darker outside. Apparently, Doc had kept to what he said and travelled forwards, all right.

As he was just adjusting to everything around him, Doc turned around. "Now, what did you want to say?"

Marty smiled. "The thing I wanted to say was this: I talked with my other self, and it turned out that he has something… interesting in his possession."

"Like what?" Doc asked, focusing on the air in front of him.

"The sports almanac."

The inventor gasped, and looked around. "Great Scott. Really?"

Marty nodded. "Yeah, he does" he said. "Apparently, he somehow managed to not turn around the bag and cause it to fall onto your feet in 2015, so they got to escape out of there with Jennifer before the cops got there. That was the reason that there was no Biff incident and you didn't end up in the Old West – Old Biff never got the almanac, because my other self kept it all the time. He's planning to use it, too, once he turns twenty-one."

Doc quietly said something not so nice, and hit the dashboard in frustration. "I can't believe this… I should've stopped him! We were there, so close, and we could've taken it away… you do understand why there is the need to do that, don't you? I trust you and the other you is probably not such a bad person as well, he just has that nasty chicken problem, but we know from absolute power corrupts."

"I know, Doc" Marty said. "And he knows. I told him about Biff and his world."

Doc frowned. "Why would you?" he said. "You did talk to him about the almanac and not took it away, so it's apparently not like you care for the future of that world."

"That's not true!" Marty exclaimed, defensively. "I do care, but I also care for my counterpart! If you had your hand, or at least your science knowledge ruined, and the only way to get a good life was use future information, wouldn't you do that? Doc, he's human, and once you get to know him better, he's not that bad. He isn't Biff, Doc, and I don't understand why you fail to see that."

"I do see that" the inventor protested.

"No you don't" Marty said. "You're comparing them, so you do think of him as a Biff-like type. But he's not bad, not that bad, and he sure as heck wouldn't do anything like Biff did. That's exactly the reason I told him about how the future of his world could be like if he turned out like Biff, to make sure he _wouldn't_ turn out like Biff, but instead would go nice and smooth and calm on it, and not go mad from the power. I like myself shooting someone as less as you do, Doc. Trust me – I really got him shaken up with that."

"Yeah, I guess I'm kind of overreacting on you" Doc said, nodding. "And on your other self, for that matter. We should stop talking about it, now… we're no longer in that reality, so there's no need to think of what to do if we were, just the only thing needed is think what to actually do now." He looked outside. "And that is land, as we appear to be near my home – or at least, where my home is in the home world." He smiled with obvious anxiety.

"Take a look at the map if you're curious" Marty suggested, noticing his friend's excitement. "You can do that, you know."

"Yeah, I know… but I can last out these few moments" Doc said, now entering the airspace above their property. He looked behind himself with a look that made clear Marty should get his fingers crossed. Then, as they finally arrived over the house, Doc let out a shriek of excitement.

"What's it?" Marty said, staring at something out of the window in a bored way.

"We're home!" Doc exclaimed, happy like a child on Christmas Eve. "Look down, there's Clara – and little Martin is with her, and he's at his normal age! Marty, we actually made it! Finally!"

"Don't get your hopes up, Doc" Marty said, sighing softly. "As much as I would want it, I know we're not home."

"Why wouldn't we be?" Doc said, defensively. "Do you doubt my judgement? Look yourself, it's Clara and Martin out there!"

"I know, Doc" Marty said, "but I still am sure we're not home."

"Why?" the inventor asked.

As a response, Marty just pointed out of the window. And as Doc looked at what his friend pointed at, he could see something that confirmed his deepest fears and made him feel secure that, like his friend said, they had not returned home. Outside, on the road, was an ordinary road sign. The lower pointed northeast, in the direction they'd just come from, and read 'Eastwood Ravine 4 ½ miles'. The other, however, which was pointed to the south, to the direction of Hill Valley, was the weirdest. The destination on it was so normal, it took Doc two reads to catch the hidden meaning, and when he read it, he turned white as a sheet.

The road sign read: 'Twin Pines Mall, 4 miles'.

"Great Scott" Doc whispered. The fact that sign read _Twin _Pines Mall, not _Lone_ Pine Mall, a change that had been made in their world on Marty's first time trip, made very clear one major thing.

This place, however undoubtedly similar in layout, was not their home.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note: **Well, I'm finally publishing something for this story again. I hope that you will all like it.

**Disclaimer: Don't own the movies. As simple as that. **

**Chapter ****Six**

Saturday, April 2, 1988

6:55 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

Doc sighed, as he looked down. Now this was the fourth reality that was not their home. Were they ever going to stop hopping? He'd hoped that, this time, they would be lucky and end up back at the dimension they started in. At least, this dimension fit into his scheme of getting closer every hop, which probably meant that the next reality should be their home. Still, he didn't want to take chances and hop into a completely unfamiliar world, which unfortunately meant he'd have to head down and see how much his local self knew about time travel and fixing things like this.

Well, at least this was the first reality in which Martin existed, Doc figured, as the young boy was out there in the garden, probably 'cause the other inventor was out in the lab and the boys were somewhere else and couldn't take care of their youngest brother. That was something positive: the kid hadn't had a universe in which he existed before, and in all honesty, Doc was glad to see him here. It meant that, even if Twin Pines-based, this reality hit close to home, and perhaps, other Doc had invented a similar invention. Maybe they'd even switched places, now, and they could somehow help each other get home by having left behind notes and tools as well as another time machine for fixing the DFSCUPCIF?

As nice that idea sounded, Doc had to write it off. After all, if he and his counterpart had travelled through worlds roughly at the same time that afternoon, Clara was looking far too relaxed for having missed her husband for almost seven hours. No, the other him was probably still around, as Doc knew Clara wouldn't take little Martin out in the garden if she'd thought her husband had been kidnapped – she'd be terrified of the little boy getting kidnapped himself. No, probably this world was not similar to his in that way, so that theory was off. Too bad. Well, maybe Other Doc – Emmett – could still help him.

The inventor stared at Marty, who seemed to have returned to a pretty calm state of mind. Doc found that almost worthy of a compliment – he was feeling pretty exhausted himself, and adrenalin was pumping through his veins. It was near six A.M. in their world, now, and the inventor knew he internally wanted nothing but his bed. But that couldn't be done, and he was not feeling like he should really take place in a guest room of his other self, not when he should be awake and working on the machine. Unless they would stop here hopping since Emmett would be able to fix the machine, Doc firmly told himself that he would not accept the offer of a bed to lie down and rest on, not when there was work to be done. He was not lazy, after all.

The inventor sighed, as he started to fly down the time machine. He wondered what his other self, Other Clara and the other boys would say of it. Was the bus even around in this reality? Somehow, Doc doubted it – he'd only conceived the idea a few months ago, and if something as far back as the mall's name was changed in this world, surely this had to be changed, too. Then again, Martin was still around, and Clara was, too. (Which was only logical – it was not very possible to have Martin without Clara).

"Marty?" he said, looking at the teenager who was leaning backwards and looking like he was half-asleep. "I'm gonna land, now. You better brace yourself – I know how annoyed you can get when I land and you're half-asleep.

"I ain't half-asleep" Marty protested.

"No, Marty, of course not" Doc said, smiling a bit sarcastically. "But anyway, I'm landing. So it's your choice – do you really want to be all shaken up when I hit the ground?"

Marty shook his head, and buckled up, and a few seconds later, the bus hit the ground behind the house, rode a few yards, and came to a halt a few feet behind the back door. "Well, if that ain't an indication we're here, nothing is" Marty said, grinning a little.

It was. As the dimensional travellers got out, Doc immediately found himself facing a thoroughly surprised Clara. "Emmett!" she called out, obviously mistaking the visitor for his local counterpart. "What's going on? Why do you have a flying bus? You only make the time machines fly! Is this a new machine I don't know about?"

The first two sentences had made Doc frown, and wonder if they were right in hoping that the local could fix their malfunctioning time machine, after all, but the next two were definitely making things clear that this world was familiar enough for Clara to know about time travel, and there was also the fact that the local had said 'machines' as a plural. "Everything's fine" he assured the other version of his wife. "Marty and I here are not the persons you probably think we are – we're from another dimension. If you're as unknowing to the term as my wife is, then I'll explain it: we're from a world that went one path, while your world went the other path. For instance, the mall is called Lone Pine Mall in our world, as Marty ran over one of the two pine trees Old Man Peabody bred, when he travelled back to 1955."

"How could he do that?" Clara wanted to know. "You didn't give him control over the machine that time in 1955, not even once. You've told me about that trip, though – November twelfth, 1955, right? You came there to stop Old Biff from giving a sports almanac to his younger self. That's the only time you or Marty or anyone in this family ever travelled to 1955, and you know it." Her eyes narrowed. "Do you?"

"No" Doc said. "That appears to be one of the differences between our worlds – no first original trip, while the others did happen. But why don't we get into your house, perhaps park the bus in the garage, and get all together, including the local Marty, before we will together attempt to find a conclusion to why exactly our universes are different, before the mere presence of Marty and I will confuse you even more, let alone my difficult story which apparently did not even happen here in the first place?"

"I – I suppose" Clara said, still somewhat baffled. She led the other world travellers inside the house, and walked through the familiar home. Doc looked around to see his friends being around like they were at home: Jules, at the normal age of eleven, and nine-year-old Verne. Finally, they arrived in front of the lab, which seemed to be pretty similar to the lab in their version of the world. Everything, except for the Twin Pines Mall sign, seemed to match up.

Clara then knocked on the door. "Emmett?" she asked, her voice a little insecure of everything.

"Yeah, Clara?" the familiar call came back. "What's the matter? Did Martin go complain about having to get outside in this weather?"

Clara had to push back a giggle. "No, it was something entirely different" she told her husband. "Something you'll only find out about when leaving the lab."

There was a deep sigh from inside. "Clara, don't play jokes with me – I'm busy on an experiment. Can't you tell me what is going on right away, or else come in?"

"No, Emmett, I'm sorry" his wife called back. "I'm afraid that when I'll tell you, you won't believe me, and when I and the… the persons that want to speak to you come in, you will faint onto your equipment."

That was enough to make Emmett curious. The time travellers heard the local get up, and walk through the lab. Within a few moments, he was at the door, pressed his thumb to the plate, switched a key to the right, and opened the door. "Well, I'm here" he muttered. "What did you want to say – Great Scott, you're me!"

The last few words were uttered as Emmett finally noticed his other self and went pale. "Great Scott" he whispered. "I can't be seeing what I am seeing… this has to be an hallucination… you're me!"

"Not exactly" his other self corrected. "I am you, but from another dimension. I already explained things to your Clara. Are you familiar with the term?"

"In theory" Emmett admitted. "But I never thought I'd ever encounter one for real. The closest was when Marty and I visited that horrible world Biff Tannen was running. With his father being pushed into divorcing Marty's Mom, and living life as a bum, and Biff's Beer Casino on top of the Courthouse, and me committed…"

Doc raised an eyebrow. "Don't you mean Marty's father being shot, and Biff's _Pleasure Paradise_?" he asked, frowning. "The part about me being committed sounds familiar, but that's about it…"

"I've never heard about anything called 'Biff's Pleasure Paradise'" Emmett said. "I don't really see the pleasure in anything like it, to be honest. It sounds like a terrible place, but then again, Biff's Beer Casino was just as bad."

"Yeah, I suppose so" Doc said. "Emmett, whatever history went in your reality, we need your help. The time bus we're in has broken down on us, and we really need to fix it if we ever want to get home again. Marty and I both need your help if we ever want to get home again. I know it sounds farfetched, but you know I am you. You can see it. So, if you want to please another version of yourself, could you help us? You can at least take a look at the time machine and see if you have appropriate knowledge to fix it."

Emmett nodded. "I suppose I could" he muttered. "I suppose I should, too. Every feeling of decency inside me tells me I should at least try to help you. But before I do that, could you perhaps tell me what is going on? Your tale does sound interesting from what I've heard already, but I haven't heard enough to conclude things from yet."

"Point made" Doc nodded. "Why don't you telephone your Marty? Once you're done with that, we could maybe get all together, and then we'll tell the story. I'm sure that your Marty will be very interested, and maybe also more able to compare things better. After all, it was my Marty that went on the trip that your world apparently lacks – the trip back to 1955. It's safe to assume that said trip never happened here, so I'd like to hear the circumstances of why, and maybe Marty will be better in providing that information."

"That could be possible" Emmett said. "He should be practicing with the band right now. I suppose you know the Pinheads?"

"Yeah" Visiting Marty answered for the scientist. "Were they founded on March twenty-third, 1984?" Emmett nodded. "Good, at least that matches up."

"All right" Emmett said. "I'll call him – you two go into the living room and make yourself feel at home. Clara can serve you a cup of tea if you like. I don't know if you want any dinner, we've just had some, after all…"

"Not yet, thanks" Doc said. "It's almost six A.M. to us and we had dinner about four hours ago in the previous world, so we can last out without for a few hours. Don't bother, other me."

"Trust me, it won't be bothering" Emmett assured him. "I'm certain that Clara would be more than willing to prepare you some dinner while I'll go Marty, listen to your story and later have a look at the machine." He looked at Marty, who yawned. "You said it's near six A.M., now? On April third, I presume?" Doc nodded. "Have you two been awake all the time since the second?"

"I'm afraid, yes" Doc said. "We didn't really have any time or possibilities to sleep in the previous worlds. I didn't really want to, either. We'd only waste time… it's better that we hurry up and just spend brief periods in the other universes, so that we'll be enjoying our rest the more once we return home."

"You really should have a rest" Emmett urged. "I know how I myself can be in such situations. Honestly, I'd be more than willing to offer you a place to sleep. The house is not that big, and we do have a big family, but there should be at least one guest blanket, and I can ask Marty to bring over a spare one if he wants to drop by after the concert, which I'm certain of that he will. I know Marty, and if there's anything I can say about him, he's pretty curious about things like this… not that we ever encountered another me that was not from future or past before, but still, I can see him wanting to come over."

"Yeah, I suppose I would, too, hadn't I just been through this kind of experience" Visiting Marty admitted. "So, you're going to call him now?"

"Yes, I am" Emmett said, nodding. "You go to the living room. I'll be back soon." He then left to the hall, where, if the similarities between this house and the visiting inventor's they'd already seen were any indication, Emmett's phone was seated.

As the visitors then entered the living room, as Emmett had told them to, Marty couldn't help himself and let out a low whistle of amazement. "Whoa" he muttered. "Everything looks exactly the same! Down to the place the television stands and where Martin's box is and everything…"

"It certainly appears to be so" Doc nodded. "You know, Marty, I think this place is one of the first dimensions we've come across, with the exception of the first two of course, which was before we started hopping unintentionally, that might have the potentiality to help us out of this mess. I am holding up my hopes, at least."

"So am I" Marty muttered. "I can't wait to see Jennifer again. I just wanna go home, and this whole thing is already making me sick of dimension travelling. I don't hope that, once this is over – if this ever will be over – you'll force me to dimension travel soon again, Doc. Heck, I don't think I can face regular time travel soon afterwards. It'll certainly take me a month or two, to warm up to the concept again. Travelling through dimensions may seem cool, but it's a lot less fun when you suddenly can't go home anymore."

"I agree" Doc said. "But you shouldn't be so negative about ordinary time travel. It's not a bad concept. Anyway, I'm going to leave the DFSCUPCIF in the bus, so we'll just be able to do the normal things in the DeLorean or the train, as they are not modified for exploring more than just the ordinary four dimensions."

"If we ever get home" Marty added, a bit depressed.

"We will" Doc said, confidently. "Things might not look so positive now, but that will change and I know it. One day, we'll get home, and even if I'll have to hop through thousands of worlds and spend half a year on this, it'll be more than worth it if we do get home eventually. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything you want. I've believed that for so long I can't remember anymore when I started doing that, and I don't care. It's true, and that's what goes for me. Just be a little more optimistic, Marty, and everything will eventually turn out better than you could hope in your wildest dreams."

Marty was about to say something about there also being such a thing as too much optimism, just when Emmett entered. "I called Marty" he said. "He'll be here in fifteen minutes. I didn't explain too much about the situation to him, just the basics, but that was enough to get him interested. He's been a bit focused on his band and his family, lately, and has tried to make sure everything would turn out fine with his parents' future and his own."

Visiting Marty wondered why there should be anything wrong with his parents' future, as the George McFly he knew was a successful science fiction author who had just published his first book, but he decided to write it off as being nothing important and instead focused on other things. "So, are you going to take a look at the bus now?" he wanted to know. "We really do want to get home, and if you can't tell too much right away with the other me not being there yet and all, you should do something."

"Marty" Doc said, embarrassed. "That was not exactly what I would call 'polite'. We just walked in on our counterparts – or, actually, only on mine just yet – and you shouldn't rush things too much."

"I just wanna get home, Doc" Marty muttered, complaining. "Why don't you understand that?"

"I do understand that" Doc said. "I just try to approach things on a different way." He turned to his other self. "Sorry if you're bothered by my Marty's lack of a respectful attitude to you, he's not like this most of the time, you know…"

Emmett laughed. "It's nothing" he assured the visiting scientist. "But it does prove to me that the two of you are suffering from exhaustion. Why don't you lie down and rest for a while? It won't do you much harm, I can assure you."

"But it will take time" Doc said, as stubborn as he had been on that night he'd decided to tear up Marty's letter, November twelfth of '55 – had that even happened here? Probably not – and he shook his head. "You know how we feel when we have Clara away from us for only an hour, and it's not good. I don't want to have a continued sensation of that, thank you very much."

Emmett sighed. "You are feeling that by every minute you spend out of your home dimension, Clara is worrying about you" he said. It was a statement, not a suggestion, as both inventors knew what the other was talking about. "But you have to realize that, even with that feeling at the back of your head, you're tired enough to fall asleep right away. Trust me – I'm you, and I've been awake for twenty-four hours a number of times before, and it happened like that each time, so it will be similar with you unless you're so different from inside that it doesn't, which I don't think you are. But, anyway, when you're asleep, you won't notice that feeling anymore, and you can spend six to seven hours without it, and just relax, and take a look at the bus, and make you get home sooner. Doesn't that sound like an amazingly nice foresight to you? I know it would to me, if I was in such a similar situation as you are currently in."

"It does" Doc admitted. "A bit. But no more than a bit. I am a responsible scientist, and I am responsible for Marty and I both getting home. If my next counterpart still insists I'll go to sleep a bit and he has a bed around, I will sleep, but not right now." He looked at his other self. "And yeah, I'm firm about that. I know enough about sleeping patterns to know that if I want to, I can stay awake for some more time, and I'm determined to do just that!"

"All right, then" Emmett said, sighing. "As long as you will give in to my next counterpart. I'll tell your Marty, and tell him that he shouldn't let you refuse again. I know myself longer than today."

"That's okay" Doc said. "In fact, I would do the exact same. I know I should have some rest, but I'm not in the position to do that right now. I want to go home, and have some rest there, possibly even take the DeLorean or the train to go back to a day in which my mansion was empty, before we accidentally burned it down." He sighed. "Then again, seeing Copernicus again might be way too painful for me to take and to properly concentrate on sleeping."

"Yeah, I see what you mean" Emmett said, looking at Marty, who seemed to be resting in a couch and about to fall asleep. "Marty?" he asked, approaching the teenager. "It's five minutes prior to your other self's arrival, so you might want to open your eyes so you won't be too shocked when he arrives."

The teenager let out a groan. "Are we gonna sleep, Doc?" he asked, mistaking the local inventor for his visiting counterpart.

"It's Emmett, not Doc, however my counterpart from your dimension is standing right behind me" Emmett said. "And no, you aren't going to sleep here, but I managed to convince your other self that he should try to have some rest in the next reality where you can do that. Since you seem to be exhausted, I think I can trust you to stand up for your rights to have some sleep, can't I?"

"You definitely can" Marty said, nodding, as he got back to consciousness. "What time is it, by the way, in this dimension? We came into this world at six-forty in the evening if I remember things right…"

"You do" Doc confirmed. "It's actually seven-thirteen now, according to the clock over there. Local Marty should arrive within…" He frowned. "Two minutes, already. I hope, for your waking ability's sake, that he won't be late."

He wasn't. Just about two seconds after Doc finished that line, a black Toyota 4 by 4 truck raced up to the house and near-slipped to a halt as the driver pressed on the brakes, hard. Within moments, they could see Local Marty get out and run towards the door. Before Emmett could get there, the bell could be heard.

"I tried to get here as soon as possible" Local Marty said, as he walked into the living room. "The guys were a bit pissed off at me, since we were busy practicing, but I convinced them that there was some kind of a family emergency at your house." He chuckled. "Which was true, somewhat, as I think your other self might be the closest you have to yourself, which means it's definitely family." He then spotted Visiting Marty, staring at him with a kind of bored expression, did a double-take, and gasped. "Whoa, that's me?" he said. "Doesn't look too different from what I see in the mirror every day, actually. This is weirder than seeing a future or past self, or anything like it – even though I have no practice with that, of course."

Doc frowned. "You don't?" he asked. "What about when you travelled back to 1955 to get that almanac away from Biff?"

Local Marty shook his head, confused. "Nope, not then" he said. "We had just one me there, as we were going to the past, like on other time trips we took. We did have to avoid my folks, though, as they were dancing. Luckily, Biff didn't go to the dance, so that was one big worry less. Imagine what could've gone wrong if he did! If he tried to rape Mom, for instance, Dad definitely wouldn't have been able to get him away from her and my siblings and I might've never existed…"

Visiting Marty looked at him thoughtfully. "Your father didn't punch Biff out, then?" he asked, curiously.

Local Marty stepped back, startled. "Heck, no!" he exclaimed. "He couldn't have done it back then, and however he managed that in late October of '85, he was a wimp which was pushed around before. Too bad, and I told Doc – Emmett, now, I suppose – more than once that I'd want to go back and change that, but he says it would make too much alteration to history." From the tone of his voice – sarcastic – the visiting musician judged his counterpart was not really happy with that conclusion of his mentor. Understandable, the visitor figured, since if his Dad and Mom were still like they were before his first trip, he would've given anything to get a happier childhood.

"Well, you could tell him that didn't happen in our universe" Visiting Marty said, only then realizing what he'd let slip with that."

Local Marty frowned and gasped somewhat hopefully. "You mean, you did change your parents' past? You went to the fifties and had them get to be nicer and more successful and maybe even wealthier?"

The visitor nodded, noticing the look of envy that appeared on the local's face. "Yeah" he said. "Didn't do much good right away, though, since my future would've still not been okay if not for Doc helping me get over my problem with being called 'chicken'."

Local Marty frowned. "I never had a problem like that" he said. "Some people called me that, but I never reacted, not even once." He looked at Visiting Marty. "You mean you did react, and it had not so nice results?"

"Yeah" Visiting Marty said, then looked at Doc and Emmett, the latter of which had sat down, too. "Look, why don't you sit down, too, and we'll start from the beginning on?"

"A good idea" Emmett said, nodding, and motioning for Local Marty to take a seat. "So, who wants to start?"

"I will" Doc said. "I suppose you still got that demonstration on October twenty-sixth, 1985? Did you send Einstein one minute into the future, and did you tell Marty then you had invented a time machine? Did you demonstrate the time displays by tapping in November fifth, 1955, and some other dates? Did you then reload, and go tell about how you wanted to see the future, and then, the Libyans showed up and shot you?"

"Yeah to most of them, but no to the last" Emmett said. "You see, it went like this…"

Emmett told he had, back then, at the parking lot, looked up, as he had heard the barking of his dog, and went pale as he saw it was the Libyan terrorists he'd made a deal with previously. "Oh my God" he whispered. "They found me, I don't know how, but they found me." His heart suddenly tripled it's beating rate. "Run for it, Marty!"

"Who, who?" Marty called out, frantically.

Emmett looked at him as if he was stupid. "Who do you think, the Libyans!"

"Holy shit!" Marty called out, as the Libyans started heading over to the van. Emmett was about to suggest something like stopping them – he had a gun on him, after all – but one look at the weaponry his opponents had made him realize that wasn't a good idea. He grabbed the box of plutonium, and threw it to Marty. "Catch it and put it in the DeLorean!" he called out.

The teen nearly fell under the weight. "What do you want?" he asked, but Doc was heading into the van already, and came out with Einstein, whom he tossed over to Marty in the DeLorean. He was just about to follow, when the Libyans had reached them, and he found himself standing face to face with one of them, pointing a gun at his head.

For a second, Emmett thought that he would die. That second also lasted an incredible amount of relative time, too, making it even harder to bear. Then, it ended, as he grabbed his own gun and tried to fire. The thing jammed. Emmett, panicking, rose his hands above his head, throwing the gun away. He couldn't die, he couldn't die…

At that moment, Marty stuck his head out of the DeLorean, holding a bottle of plutonium. "If you move one more step, or even try to shoot with that gun, I'll throw this bottle against the van and kill you all!" he screamed, making sure the bottle was in sight and that the Libyans, who, according to him, most likely didn't speak English, understood him properly. He apparently didn't really want to kill them, but if he had to…

The Libyans exchanged glances, and then, they drove back a few yards, out of shooting range. Emmett quickly stepped into the DeLorean, as Marty moved back, and he shut the door as the shooting began again. Marty quickly put the plutonium bottle inside the box again, careful not to break it, closed it, and a fraction of a second after that, Emmett hit the gas, and they were on their way, racing through the parking lot, with the Libyans following them close behind.

As the speed increased and hit sixty-five and went past it, Doc noticed the time circuits were set to 1955. Suddenly getting a plan, he tapped in a new destination: October twenty-sixth, 2010, at six A.M.

Marty barely noticed, too distracted by viewing the road and the Libyans behind them. They soon hit seventy, then crept up to eighty. "Doc?" he asked. "What if we crash at this speed?"

Emmett looked at him in a mad way. "That's brilliant, Marty!" he exclaimed, excitedly.

"Us crashing is brilliant?" the teen asked in disbelief, rolling his eyes. "I know better ways to die."

"No, I didn't mean that" Emmett said, grinning. He looked out of the window and noticed that they were no longer on the Mall parking lot, anymore. He then looked at the Libyans approaching. "Hi ho silver" he whispered, concentrating on the soon-to-be plowed down old building that was rapidly approaching at the road. "Marty, hold on to your chair, tight!"

"What… do you…" Marty started, his face going pale.

Emmett ignored him. "Let's see if these bastards are as nutty as I think they are" he muttered, increasing the speed up to ninety, seeing the speedometer hitting eighty-five. He then took the DeLorean off the roads, through the fields and raced towards the building. Marty let out a shriek, and then, the time machine hit eighty-eight and vanished into the future, the Libyans hitting the building in a loud crash.

"Amazing" Doc of 1988 cut in. "So, you travelled to 2010?"

"Yeah, that's right" Emmett said, nodding. "Marty and I arrived in an empty spot. Once I stopped the car and explained what was going on and what I had done, he was pretty quick to adapt to the whole situation, and I drove him up to town. Together, we explored the fascinating future, and we had the DeLorean be hover-converted. That evening, I went to the library, and I left Marty behind in the hotel room we'd rented for the night. Luckily, he did not do anything to get himself into trouble, as he was way too tired from having been up for about two days. I found out the details about Marty's and his parents' future, but when I woke him up, I only told him about his son's fate."

"What happened?" Doc asked, curiously. "If this was some sort of a Twin Pines based 2010, based on Wimp George and Alcoholic Lorraine, I suppose that the exact circumstances I discovered were different. I discovered a Science-Fiction Writer George and Healthy Lorraine, as things had been in 1985. It was Marty who was different."

"That sounds different" Emmett said. "In the version of reality I discovered, George McFly was actually dying, Lorraine was in a retirement home for alcoholics, having divorced her husband in the late years of this Century, and Biff was still in relatively good health and pushing people around. Marty's future son, Marty Junior, had been pushed around by Griff Tannen and into a dare at school that would've gotten him kicked out and had his future ruined since he couldn't get a good job anymore because of a lack of education… no school wanted to teach him, after hearing what he had done. Marty Senior, lucky enough, was also okay, although I'll leave out the specifics here."

"Aww" Local Marty complained. "Can't you make an exception to your 'I'll say nothing about the future' rule for once, Doc? I wanna know what my future is like."

"I'm telling you it's fine" Emmett said, smiling knowingly. "Anyway, as I got back to the hotel room Marty and I were renting Marty was still sound asleep, and as I'd spent a lot of time sleeping before the time travel experiment, I decided to call Future Marty to make an appointment for that morning at six. Something I shouldn't have done, considering the time, but still, everything turned out fine. I visited him right on time, and talked to him for a while until I returned to the hotel room at nine. I then went to sleep a little more, and Marty used a computer for a while, and I had Einstein guard him so he couldn't look up his future."

"That was pretty childish of you" Local Marty complained.

"I suppose so, but I know what you can be like when it comes to discovering your future, Martin McFly" Emmett said, again smiling. "Anyway, I woke up at one P.M., ate lunch, and then we picked up the DeLorean and I picked up some newspapers – that was when I told Marty about what happened to his future kid, by the way. We discussed that for a while, and that evening at six P.M., I finally decided to leave Einie in some sort of kennel, and after dinner, we were headed twenty-five more years into the future, on October twenty-seventh 2035 at six A.M. again. There, I got a nice Fusion reactor and turned in the plutonium to the government. Unfortunately, filing for everything took us three days, so we weren't able to leave until the evening of the thirtieth."

"Let me guess" Doc said, remembering what he had done. "With Marty already there, your first stop must've been… October twenty-first, 2010? Was that when the thing with Marty Junior happened?"

"That's right" Emmett said, surprised. "How did you know? If you went to a different reality…"

"It was a different reality, and the year was 2015, but otherwise, there were remarkable similarities" Doc said. "While Marty Senior was in trouble for busting his hand in a Rolls Royce accident on the twenty-seventh of October '85, Junior was in trouble, too, and he was pushed into a robbery by the same Griff Tannen you saw. I suppose there must be something that is similar in all the universes… a self preservation effect for the space-time continuums, don't you think?"

"That might as well be possible" Emmett said, nodding. "Anyway, most things went according to plan, but once Marty had finished his mission with Griff, he bought a sports almanac with inside the scores from 1950 to 2000. I discovered it and threw it away, but as we were about to leave to go home again, finally, Biff Tannen came up to us and knocked us out with some branches. He was still quite strong, and he'd probably had taken care of himself medically by money he gained from bullying George McFly around. Anyway, he took the time machine back to the past, and when we tried to stop him, he had already vanished. Luckily, he reappeared about two minutes later, and we managed to overpower him. I then realized he didn't have the almanac on him anymore, and I checked the Last Time Departed, which was 1955 – November twelfth, at 6:38 P.M, just one week after I conceived of the flux capacitor, so I naturally was worried about Biff giving his younger self the info to build a time machine, or doing something to prevent me from building one… although I didn't know why, as Biff had a time machine on himself at that point. I did want a time which was something a little more specific, though, so I figured that maybe I could head back to sometime later to check with Biff. I figured that having Marty be mistaken for himself nor Calvin Klein would be fine, so I first thought of some place in the middle of the two time periods, 1970, but then, I decided 1975 would be nicer, to see if our meeting still happened. On November fifth, the day I treasured so much. We flew away from the Square and into 1975, wondering what kind of world we would find."

"I can only imagine what that was like, having seen Lone Pine Biff's world" Doc said, sighing. "And this Biff was a lot more confident than that."

"Yeah, he definitely was" Marty nodded. "We arrived over a Square with a Beer Paradise, which appeared to have been finished just recently. As I approached the building, I found Dad being a drunken bum on the streets, and Dave, only thirteen, was the same. Nine-year-old Linda was already a prostitute, and when I got in, I found my seven-year-old self being abused by Biff. I then approached him under the guise of one of his co-workers – honestly, not even my counterpart recognized me – and asked him where he got the almanac. He told me the circumstances – it had been that evening – and then, I left for Emmett, but not until Biff tried to shoot me. Emmett knocked him out with a gull wing door and we headed back to '55, at six in the evening."

"Most of it sounds familiar" Doc remarked. "We actually went to six A.M., but I still knocked out Biff with the gull-wing door. But what happened in 1955?"

"I luckily didn't have to chase Biff around town, since he stayed at home looking at the almanac" Marty said. "He did try to knock me out, though. Nearly succeeded, too. We had a tug-war over the almanac, and finally, I got it. Doc was close to me then – it was almost nine-thirty P.M. – and we flew over to Lyon Estates, where the storm was just starting. Unfortunately, Doc got struck by lightning. I cried about him being gone, but luckily, a Western Union guy showed up with a letter from 1885."

"Sounds familiar" Visiting Marty smirked. "Let me guess – you headed to find Doc from '55, who fainted at the sight of you?"

Local Marty frowned. "Nope, he didn't faint" he said. "I headed up to the Courthouse to watch the lightning strike, and after that, I headed up to Doc's mansion. There, things actually went like this…"

Marty felt weirded out, as he hoverboarded through the rain up to the Brown mansion. First of all, Doctor Emmett Lathrop Brown, his friend for his entire life, had vanished to the Old West. Second of all, he was in the past, which seemed very surreal after spending almost a week in the future, and third of all, he was about to confront a Doc who was unaware of the fact that time travel (and Marty himself) existed.

Sighing, he finally set his hoverboard next to the porch, and knocked on the door. If Emmett didn't open, he was going to be in serious trouble.

Luckily, though, his worries didn't come through. The scientist opened the door, and frowned. "Who are you?" he asked, without the faintest trace of recognition. "It's ten-fifteen. My dog and I were about to turn in for the night."

Marty looked down, and saw a dog close to the inventor who resembled Einstein a lot. Perhaps a relative? Who cared. "Doc" the teen insisted. "I'm from the future. I came here in a time machine that you invented. Now, I need your help to get me and your future self back to the year 1985."

Emmett looked at him like he was insane, then burst out in laughter. "That's a good one, kid!" he exclaimed. "1985! Tell me, who's president in that year?"

"Ronald Reagan" Marty said, confidently.

Emmett '55 now really couldn't keep his laughter behind. "Now that's a good joke!" he exclaimed. "Ronald Reagan – the actor – as president! Then Jane Wayman must be the first lady – and Jerry Lewis vice-president! What a nonsense! Think I believe that, kid?" He was about to slam the door shut, but Marty quickly stuck his right foot in the doorway.

"Wait a second, Doc" he pleaded. "You can't shut the door on me now! I'm telling the truth, you really have to believe me!"

"Sure I do, kid" Emmett said, getting bored. "Get out of here. It was a nice joke, but now I've got to go to bed and before that do some more calculations on my latest invention, one I came up with just a week ago. I don't have time for this…"

"Of course!" Marty exclaimed. "That invention! I know what it is! It's the flux capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible! You were standing on your toilet and you were hanging a clock, then you slipped and hit your head and came up with the idea for it!"

Emmett gasped. "How did you know that?" he asked. "Did you spy on me last Saturday?"

Marty shook his head. "You told me, Doc" he said, firmly. "You told me the whole story, back in 1985." As the scientist started to doubt his initial conclusion, Marty took out his wallet. "Look at this" he insisted, taking out a photograph. "My brother, my sister and I. Look at her sweatshirt Doc. Class of 1984?"

"You could've made a fake photograph" Emmett said. "Although it looks pretty real."

"Then look at this Doc" Marty insisted, getting out another photograph. "This is you and me in front of the Courthouse in 2010. Look at that guy on the picture – that's you all right. Look at the handwriting at the back? Tell me that ain't yours and I'll go away."

Emmett looked at the photograph, eyes growing wide, and at the back of the picture. "Doc Brown and Marty McFly, October twenty-sixth 2010" he read. He then stared at Marty. "You're from the future." Marty nodded, and noticed Emmett getting more excited with the moment. "It works!" he exclaimed. "I finally invented something that works!"

"It works all right" Marty muttered.

"Well, if your story is true, then I'm responsible to help you get home" Emmett concluded. He looked past Marty and onto his land. "Where's the time machine?"

Marty gulped uneasily. "You see, Doc, that is where the problems come in…"

At this point, Visiting Marty smiled. "Amazing" he whispered, sort of imitating Doc. "You mean that you actually had to tell Emmett about everything? I'd already first met him the week before, so I never had that kind of trouble."

"Yeah, I did have to do that" Local Marty said. "I told him about the time machine and about our adventures and about 1885. Doc read the letter to me, and that morning we picked up some things at a shop that was opened on Sundays. Monday morning, we blasted open the Delgado Mine and got out the DeLorean. I then discovered…"

"…Doc had been shot by Tannen" Visiting Marty finished. "You headed back to 1885 but ripped the fuel line 'cause you ran into some Indians. You spent the night with Seamus and Maggie McFly. Doc and you tried to have the DeLorean run on alternate fuels and finally decided pushing it up with a locomotive was the best, and when you were at the ravine you saved Clara Clayton's life?"

Local Marty nodded. "Did you all go to the town festival and Buford tried to shoot Doc? You prevented it but he… well, I guess he called you a chicken and challenged you for Monday morning at eight A.M.?"

"Yeah, that happened" Visiting Marty said. "What do you mean with 'I guess'?"

"It didn't happen that way in our world" Local Marty explained. "I ignored Buford mostly, and eventually, he gave up on me, with Seamus commenting how wise I was being by not being like his brother, Martin. Let's see, the rest should be the same… the next night, did you then find Doc telling you he was in love with Clara but you talked him out of staying behind, and he talked himself out of taking her with us? He then headed over to her, was dumped, and spent the night in the saloon with a glass of whiskey in hand? You woke up that morning, checked on Clara, and then arrived in town at seven-forty-five? You persuaded Doc to come along with you but he then drank from the whiskey and passed out at once?"

"Exactly!" Visiting Marty called out. "We really must be similar at this point… until now. In our world, Doc woke up from the wake-up juice Chester poured inside him, but not until Buford had shown up and I had realized that being called a chicken was not as important as surviving. I then tried to flee together but Doc was stopped and I had to go out to save him. I used the stove door trick from that Clint Eastwood movie… kind of borrowed it from Doc's bullet-proof vest thing… and knocked Buford in the face a few times before he fell into a manure wagon. I then looked at the photograph together with Doc and saw the tombstone fading in front of my eyes. I then heard the train whistle sound and Doc told me that we'd make it if we cut it off at Coyote Pass, and that worked."

"Exciting" Local Marty muttered. "When Doc woke up, we just narrowly caught up to the train in time, jumped on the back, put our masks on, and hijacked it… nothing concerning Buford Tannen, at least." He looked up. "Let's see… this should stay the same… did you then push up the DeLorean with Doc in the train and you inside the car, but did Clara come after you and did she confront you at fifty? Did Doc go back for her, but was he left hanging at a pipe when the red log blew at seventy-two, and Clara hung from her dress?"

"I'm afraid so" Doc answered for his friend, shuddering at the horrifying memory. That certainly hadn't been fun.

Visiting Marty patted his back, sympathetically. "It's all right, Doc" he muttered, then he focused on his counterpart. "Were you in the DeLorean lifted off the tracks and raced forwards with only the back wheels there? When you landed normally again, did you then find the hoverboard and threw it out to Emmett, who managed to catch it and save Clara just in time? Did they hover off, and then you discovered you were at eighty-four, closed the door and braced yourself as you travelled to the future? Once there, was the time machine destroyed by a train from the '80s?"

Local Marty nodded. "Yeah" he muttered. "I don't believe this. Did you then go home, saw everything was back to normal including Biff, and then you headed out with the truck to grab Jennifer? Did you then drive up to the traffic lights near the Hilldale housing development, and were you challenged by Needles to race, but when the light went to green, you drove forwards instead of backwards and saw a Rolls Royce coming out of a side road and did you realize at that point you could've hit it – you _would_ have hit it, if you had accepted Needles' challenge?"

Visiting Marty nodded. "Yeah, and I suppose here comes at least one of the difference between our realities. In the world that I consider home, Jennifer then took out a fax she had from our trip to the future, and watched the writing on it – it said 'YOU'RE FIRED', as my other self had been that evening after the hoverboard chase – fade away into nothing. Since your Jennifer was not along on that trip to the future, she never had an experience like that?"

"Nope" Local Marty nodded. "I took her to a restaurant to grab a snack, didn't tell her anything, and then, we headed out to see the DeLorean wreckage, hoping that would convince her. I was just about to explain to her what had happened, when Emmett appeared out of nowhere with his brand new steam train time machine, Clara and his two sons. I explained to Jennifer that this was a time machine, which Emmett confirmed, and he gave me a parcel as souvenir – him and I standing in front of the Courthouse clock in 1885."

"Sounds similar" Visiting Marty said. "Only, in our world, I talked with Jennifer a lot about my adventures under dinner, and I took her out to see the wreck because I'd told her about the DeLorean being destroyed once I arrived back in the present. Doc's visit went as you told me. Did Emmett, too, head off after that parcel with the message that our future hadn't been written yet… no, wait, Doc only did say that after Jennifer gave him the fax from the future and asked him what it meant."

"Well, he did say something like that" Local Marty confirmed. "He said that after Jennifer asked what was going to be our future now, now that our son was all okay. He said pretty much the same you just told me, and then he flew off up to eighty-eight and vanished into the past."

"I can't believe it" Doc said, shaking his head. "Except for that first trip to 1955, which never took place here, and twisted versions of the trips to 2015, Biff's world and 1955, things turned out pretty similar here. I still got married to Clara, still got Jules and Verne, I still moved back home and got Martin… we're actually pretty close in the space-time continuums, I think, judging from what I've seen so far."

"Does that mean that our next trip could bring us home?" Visiting Marty asked, not wanting anything more desperate than that at the moment.

Doc's answer was neither a denial or a 'yes'. "Theoretically, that could have happened with every trip we took, and every trip we're going to take" he said. Seeing that Marty got a little depressed from that, he soon added: "However, it does mean that most likely, my local self might have the abilities to help us. Do you think you do, Emmett?"

"I can at least have a look" the local said. "I can't promise anything, of course, but I want to at least give it a shot. I know how I would feel if I was stranded between dimensions, and I don't want you to keep hopping because I didn't want to help you."

"Thanks" Doc said. "Then I suppose I'd better take you outside and show you the time bus." Emmett nodded, and Visiting Marty watched as the two inventors, busily conversing about their lives and their greatest invention, headed off to once more try a desperate attempt to repair whatever was going wrong with the time bus that caused it to refuse to get them home. Somehow, Visiting Marty was doubting they'd succeed. He sighed, and internally prepared himself for soon having to make another round of dimension travel, explanations, repair attempts, and finally the 'sorry, can't fix it' answer the locals always gave. He sighed again, deeply. Was he ever going to get home?

oooooooo

"Sorry, me, but you're not going home now."

Doc stared at Emmett, then at the clock, which said nine-thirty P.M., then back at his counterpart. "Really?" he asked. "I thought you'd work something out. You do look pretty similar to me at this."

"Sorry" the local apologized, again. "I know I'm pretty similar, I can see it, too, but I never even thought of building a time machine out of a bus. I spent my free time helping Marty out or setting up the business with Emmett Brown Enterprises again. I'm doing pretty well – the town figured I was weird when I let them know about my nine-year-long not publicly known wedding, and they thought Clara and the boys had to be crazy, too, if they were the sons and wife of a guy that lived separate from his wife for all that time. But, luckily, they soon warmed up to them, especially Clara and Verne, and later Martin – Jules was the last the town's kids befriended. Eventually, my family helped me decrease my small 'bad reputation' in town, instead of making it larger as Marty expected when I told him exactly what my plans were."

Doc smirked. "My Marty had that kind of reaction, too" he said. "He hates how bad some people in town treat me sometimes, and he didn't want that to stay that way. He tried to persuade me to try to get Clara and the boys into normal Hill Valley life some other way. He relaxed, eventually, but not really until I told him that I'd move back to early 1995 otherwise." He smirked. "The thought of not seeing me for almost ten years apparently did the trick. He did not want me to be back over five years after his wedding, four years after first getting success as a rock star – and, to be honest, that wouldn't have been too smart either. At that point, I'd seen… well, accidentally stumbled over information about myself in the future before, still alive in 2025, with Jules and Verne in their late forties and I knew better than to push his life forwards a decade. Who knew, after all, maybe I was supposed to do something between 1985 and 1995 that had in the original history been one of the things I saw in 2015? No man knows the future, after all."

"My thoughts exactly" Emmett said, nodding. "That was one of the major reasons I moved back to 1985 instead of 1995, besides the fact that it was my home era and that I missed teenaged Marty. And I have to say I'm glad to have made the decision I made."

"I am, too" Doc said. "Although I might've never built the bus in that situation, and I might've never ended up in this kind of trouble." He looked at his counterpart. "Aw, well. It could've been worse – at least we don't need plutonium to fuel our time machine anymore. I'll go call Marty – do you mind making a nice long check on the systems? I'd like to keep it a habit to check every time we depart. I don't want to even run the slightest risk to have missed something that might've caused us to end up home next time." He shivered as he merely thought of ruining his own chances to get him and Marty home… perhaps his only chance.

"I understand" Emmett said, softly. He turned on the readouts, and Doc heard him rattle off the information needed as he himself headed over to the house.

It was so easy, he thought, looking at it, to pretend that it was home, to just settle down and do like the kids in there were his, and the Clara in there was his wife, and not the wife of another counterpart of himself. But he couldn't – he knew that, if he did that, then his Clara and Jules, Verne and Martin would never see him again. He had a family to take care of, and he had responsibilities he wanted to take care off, no matter if it cost a million trips or more. And he knew Marty felt the same about Jennifer.

Doc just had to think about leaving his wife and children behind forever to make him shudder. Jules would probably feel emptier than ever and lonelier, having at least been able to sympathise with his old man about his love for science. He probably wouldn't be able to take the rest of his years in school that were needed for him to reach his beloved PhD in physics and quit for some weird job a long time before that. Verne would not have Marty nor his father around, and would not have a role model anymore in either of them, and he most likely wouldn't become an actor, but perhaps he'd even go live on the streets. Martin would barely know his father, having been just seventeen months old – not even completely, yet – and he would not have a happy life either. And Clara's fate was something the scientist didn't even want to think about. He shivered. No, the wisest decision was to go on and try to get home, eventually, or hit a reality with a him that could fix the machine.

The inventor entered the familiar house, tried hard to ignore everything around him, and instead headed straight for Marty, who was sitting on the bench, a bored expression in his face. "Come on" he said, simply. "We have to go."

Marty looked at him, his expression making obvious he knew what the inventor was going to say already. "He failed, didn't he?" the musician said, half-chuckling. "The other you's can't be very smart."

"Why don't you do it yourself, if you can better" Doc said. He wasn't really annoyed at Marty's behaviour, as he knew that his angry-seeming words and Marty's rudeness were caused by the same thing – exhaustion. He vowed to himself that even if his next self wouldn't have the abilities to help them, he should at least try to get some sleep, there, along with Marty – unless Next Doc didn't have a bed around, of course.

"Hey, you're the scientist" Marty said, defensively. "I was just wondering why fate seems to be against us today. No one is able to fix the time machine! Maybe it's really our destiny to keep hopping through other worlds this way." He made a disgusted sound, which made clear that he did not enjoy that possibility.

"Theoretically speaking, there's no such thing as 'destiny'" Doc said. "So we still have hopes to return home some time. Come on, Marty – let's try again."

Visiting Marty made an annoyed sound, waved a quick goodbye to his local self, and then followed Doc up to the bus. Emmett looked up as they arrived, and looked at Visiting Marty before directing his look at Doc.

"Sorry" he apologized. "I tried my best to fix the thing, but it seems not to want to listen to my reasoning – which is only logical, as it's a machine, but that still isn't nice. I even did an extra test to make sure everything's all right. It says yes, so I suppose that something big must really be off, if you are really hopping between so much worlds and still typed in the same codes."

"Oh, great" Marty groaned. "We've been through three dimensions now, looking for help, and the only conclusion that is drawn is that this ain't just a little glitch, but it's a big one. Thanks a lot, Emmett, for finding out something we already knew."

"Marty!" Emmett exclaimed. "That was not something nice to say."

"So what?" the teen argued back. "I'm tired." He headed towards his seat in the bus and resumed his position.

"I'm sorry" Doc then said, to Emmett. "He must be really exhausted. Normally he isn't like that, but it is eight-forty-two A.M. in our world, now. And if one hasn't slept for over twenty hours… I do have problems with staying awake, but not as much as Marty has. That is, of course, because I have more experience with all-nighters." He yawned. "Still, I'm pretty exhausted, as well."

The local nodded, understanding. "Maybe you shouldn't have turned down my offer to stay for the night" he said. "You two do look rough. My offer still stands, so if you want to turn around and have some rest after all, be my guest."

Doc refused, politely. "No, thanks" he said. "I'd prefer to do at least one more dimensional jump before sleeping. Thank you very much for the offer, though."

"My pleasure." Emmett stepped off the bus. "Well… I hope not 'see you', for once, since that would probably mean that you'll keep dimension hopping. I'd prefer 'farewell' in this situation."

"Goodbye" Doc compromised. Emmett grinned, and watched as the bus lifted up from the ground, and blasted off through the sky, accelerating rapidly.

Inside, Marty leaned forwards. "Where are we going, Doc?" he asked. "Or, better, _when_?"

"Let's try high noon again, and see if it helps better to stay awake" Doc said. "I'm more than willing to have some sleep in the next reality, but there's no need to do something that is not necessary. Destination Time: April 2, 1988, 12:44 P.M., Hill Valley, California."

"Why do you keep mentioning the location?" Marty asked, frowning. "And why do you have a display for it? It's not like you can actively control the place you go to."

Doc shrugged. "No, but that is the next addition I'm planning to add to the time machines, or at least to the train, as it will be more helpful by family trips than by short trips. I'm kind of tired of only having about a century and a half history to choose from, because in the early Nineteenth Century, Hill Valley didn't even exist… it was Spanish-speaking before the late 1840s, and belonged to Mexico. So, anyway, I added in the display because I know it will come in handy, once I finish this project."

Marty smiled. "All right" he said. "Let's just go now, okay?"

Doc understood his anxiety, and accelerated through the sky. Due to the emptiness and lack of airplanes or other flying objects – luckily they weren't in the Twenty-First Century now – it didn't take long for the highly modified bus to reach eighty-eight miles per hour. There was a brief, but intense flash of light, a few sonic booms, and within seconds, the time machine had moved on to the next dimension.


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note: **Next chapter. It's a two-in-one deal, but that's because there is less to tell about the dimensions in here.

**Disclaimer: See previous chapter. **

**Chapter ****Seven**

Saturday, April 2, 1988

12:44 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

Doc sighed as they went through the familiar sensation of dimensional as well as time travelling. Even the news of the sky at night turning to bright daylight didn't surprise him anymore. "Figures" he muttered to himself, too soft for Marty to hear. "I wonder if I'm going to dream about time travelling, too, when I'll ever get to sleep."

Getting a bit curious about where he'd ended up, the inventor risked a peek out of the window, and found a pretty disappointing sight. Like in the second dimension they had visited unwillingly, the house below seemed unsettled, as it was before May of 1986. He sighed. Once again, they were not at the place they identified as home – and once again, none of the systems inside the time machine registered anything as being abnormal. The inventor felt really sick of all of this. Why wasn't that stupid system registering the fact that this was not where they were supposed to be?

"We're not home, are we?" Marty asked, not needing the answer to know they weren't. "What the heck is going wrong with that stupid thing, Doc?"

"I don't know, Marty" the inventor admitted. "Once we do find that out, though, it'll be a lot easier to find out what to do to fix it, and return home to our reality."

"Thank you for the information" Marty quipped.

Doc shot him a look. "No sarcasm now, please" he said. "I'm trying to think of what to do next."

"Let's just go back to your house and get this done with" Marty suggested. "The garage, I mean. We can check out if it's empty there. If it is, it might mean that you do not live there or here, and then we should look up things in the phone book." He smiled at Doc's surprised look. "Such a bad memory, Doc? You told me that right in the first reality we visited."

"Yeah… I suppose I did forget, in all the excitement" Doc muttered. "All right, the garage it is." He started to slowly move the flying vehicle over to the garage, wondering what they would find _this _time.

Marty had similar questions. "Hey, Doc" he said. "What if we encounter a reality in which you are going to be dead, this time? Or I am? We couldn't get that much help, then, could we?"

There was no point in denying what was obviously the truth. "No…" the scientist muttered, keeping his eyes onto the readouts. "But there wouldn't be that much chance of that happening, would there? I usually keep myself safe, and you do, too."

"I'm not sure of that" the teenager said. "I mean, yeah, we do try our best to keep ourselves all right, and you do have a time machine, but maybe here, we don't have a time machine, or we never got to be friends. If I was killed in that car accident with Needles, and you weren't friends with me, you couldn't stop that accident because you didn't know about it, and I'd remain dead."

"That is a possibility" the inventor allowed. "But it's a small one, and we shouldn't let that small factor contribute in what we are going to do. Even if either of us has died here, it's not us, it's simply another version of us from another reality. We shouldn't even wipe a tear about it, as it's not something that happened in our reality, but in another one."

"Yeah, I suppose" the teen nodded. "I would feel like a jerk, though, if I'd do that."

"You wouldn't be" Doc assured him. "It's not you, after all – you don't really need to feel sorry for the other you or the other me 'cause you never knew the person that died. You can feel sympathy, though. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just that we shouldn't treat it like it was a major deal concerning us."

"Right" Marty said, nodding, then looking out of the window. "Are we there, already?" he asked, somewhat hopeful.

Doc smiled. "Almost" he promised, taking the time machine down to John F. Kennedy Drive and flying it down the road up towards his other house, which, indeed, appeared to be lived in. He smiled at that part of good luck, and then turned to his friend. "I think it's your turn to approach Emmett again" he said. "We've each had our turns, and I do think that it's nice to be confronted by someone you know as a friend, instead of someone you know because you see the face of that person in the mirror every day."

Marty smirked. "I see your point" he said, nodding. The time machine then landed, and both visitors got out. After locking it carefully, Marty once again approached Local Doc's home, with Doc running up to the side of the garage to hide there and wait for his other self to open the door, wondering if this him would be able to fix the time machine… if he even knew about time travel, in the first place. There was, of course, the possibility that Emmett had never invented a time machine, however Doc thought that chance was, however possible, pretty small. He could not imagine himself as something else but an inventor, and he also could not imagine himself as not pursuing the vision he had on November fifth, 1955.

Marty, in the meantime, felt himself almost being relaxed when he rang the bell at Other Doc's home. "Guess that's what frequently dimension travelling does to you" he said, chuckling, then stepping back to wait for Local Doc – Emmett – to arrive.

Within a few moments, the door was opened, and an Emmett that looked a few years too old for himself looked at Marty… and then asked: "Who are you?"

The teen frowned, and gasped, feeling more surprised than he'd done if Emmett had carried a gun and had tried to shoot him. "Doc?" he asked, not really sure. "It's me, Marty."

Emmett still looked at him without any recognition. "I am a Doctor Brown, yes" he said, appearing somewhat puzzled. "You still haven't answered my question, though – I was wondering, just who are _you_? I don't know a Marty… never known anyone in all of my life. What's your surname?"

"McFly" Marty said, baffled. In all of the weirdest universes, he'd never thought he'd see this happen – a present-day Doc that didn't know who he was. "Martin Seamus McFly. You know that… we first met in 1975!" As Doc's look appeared blank, he added: "October twenty-sixth, 1975?"

"The day doesn't ring a bell" Emmett said. "If you're here to sell me something or play a practical joke on me, I'm not interested." He near-closed the door, Marty keeping his foot in the doorway, like his other self from the previous world had done when meeting up with Young Emmett in 1955, who also didn't believe him. This really was beginning to get similar to that situation.

"Listen, Doc" he said, nearly begging. "Do you really not know me? No meeting on October twenty-sixth, 1985? Did you even ever come up with the idea for the flux capacitor?"

The scientist gasped, focusing entirely on the last words. "How do you know about that?" he asked, confused. "I never told anyone about that secret! Have you been spying on me all along?"

While Marty was still thinking what to say, rescue came from an unexpected corner. Suddenly, someone stepped forwards – someone Emmett knew very well.

"No" Doc said. "He heard about the time machine from me."

The look of himself made Emmett not even able to bring himself to utter the words his previous selves had said, when facing someone who looked just like themselves, namely the suggestion that 'you're me'. Emmett, however, did not say this. He just stared at his counterpart for a few seconds, then started muttering his favourite catchphrase, 'Great Scott', but he didn't finish it, and instead fell down, the ground rushing up to meet him.

Emmett had fainted.

Marty sighed, as he looked at his unconscious friend. "Now this" he complained, to his Doc. "What else is going to happen to us? First all these dimension hopping things, and now, there's a you who's fainted!"

Doc chuckled, albeit slightly. "Yeah, I think I know how you feel" he said. "It's okay, though. Emmett – my other self – should be just fine in a few hours' time. It's just that we're not very sure if this reality's version of me can actually help us. If we knew he couldn't, we could leave right away."

Marty did not agree with him. "Don't we already know?" he asked. "I mean, he doesn't even know me here! Not that I'm so important, but the other you's we've encountered at least knew who I am!"

"Yeah, but that doesn't necessarily decrease the possibility of him being able to help us" Doc said. "For all we know, he's very intelligent, more than I am, and even though he has never met you, he can still help us."

"Yeah, I guess so" Marty muttered. "So what do you plan to do with him? Take him in, and empty a bottle of water above his face?"

The inventor smirked. "Yes to the former, no to the latter" he said. "Nothing quite that radical. I actually think we should just take him in. Then, we can see if he wakes up. We don't want to surprise him too much."

Marty smirked sarcastically. "I think we've already done that" he muttered, looking at the unconscious state his friend's other self was in. "He can't be scared more than he was just a few moments ago, when he saw you. But, anyway," he quickly added as he saw a frown that revealed an insulted feeling appearing on the inventor's face, "that wasn't your fault – you couldn't have known he would faint, and neither could I. But the fact he did faint, is for me reason enough to go."

"Why?" the visiting inventor asked.

"Since none of the other versions of you fainted, Doc" Marty insisted. "Which means that this one has less experience with time travel, and he also didn't know me, so he's really different. I don't really expect him to be able to fix the time machine."

The inventor nodded. "Yeah, but I do think we should stay, if even for a while." He looked at his watch, which read the time as nearly nine A.M. on Sunday. "It should be almost one P.M. now – if he hasn't woken up by two-thirty, we'll leave. I'll go search through the journals in his study, and you can stay in the main room." He looked at his other self. "But why don't we help him get in first? We don't want to leave him on the porch and draw attention to ourselves, and besides, that shouldn't be a very nice place to wake up, I assume."

The teen smiled. "Yeah, I can understand that." He reached out to grab Emmett's arms, and Doc did the same thing with his counterpart's feet. They then lifted him, and Marty let out a faint scream as the inventor was lifted off the porch. "Man, you're _heavy_!"

Doc, who seemed to be handling his part of the weight well, stared at Marty with some amusement. "I believe you've gone through this before" he said. "You carried my younger self from the street in front of the Courthouse to my Packard, after all, and from there you carried him up the doorsteps to my mansion? You should have some experience with carrying me."

Marty nodded, pushing back another groan. "Yeah, but it has been almost two-and-a-half years since that, and adding the time travel we've done since then, it might be pushing three" he said. "I – can you at least make sure the doors are open? I don't want to keep holding you while you try to open the doorway with your elbows while keeping a loosened grip on your other self."

The inventor nodded, understanding, and headed off to do just that, after setting Emmett down. Marty just had enough time to push some air into his hands, which had turned red from the weight, and just finished that when his friend returned.

"Everything appears to be as I remember it" Doc said. "It shouldn't be too long of a walk to get there… are you okay?" That question was indeed directed to the musician, who appeared to be very tired.

Marty, however, shook his concerns off. "I can handle this for a while yet" he said, getting all the confidence he had together. "I'm okay. Let's just get this over with." Doc nodded, and they lifted up Emmett again.

Within a minute or two that seemed like an hour, Doc and Marty finally managed to set Emmett down on the couch, in a bit of a weird way, having Emmett's head fall half off, hovering above the ground, while his legs were on the vertical part of the couch. His stomach, though, was in the centre of the couch. It sure was a weird sight, but Marty was glad to finally have his friend on a solid place. He sighed, now feeling extremely tired. It seemed like everything that had happened in the past hours finally was coming down to hit him, and for a moment, he felt like he was going to collapse like Emmett, making the need for Doc to once more carry someone to a place he could properly rest on.

But luckily, he did not, or at least, not at that moment. He somehow managed to force himself to turn around and face his friend, who was staring at Emmett, face set on 'busy' mood. "All right" Doc then said, to Marty, focusing on the teenager again. "Do you have anything in mind to do?"

"Besides sleeping?" Marty asked, yawning. "Nope – nothing. You happen to have something for me, Doc?"

The visitor smiled. "I just might" he said, mysteriously. He then walked off, leaving Marty confused for a few moments but not for too long, as he soon returned with the local version of the saxophone he'd had in his garage ever since the early fifties.

"You've played the instrument in music class before, or so I remember, and I doubt your skills in this have decreased much" he said. "You should be able to play it just fine, and distract yourself with playing a few of your favourite songs. In the meantime, I can do my end of the visit – find out what exactly has all happened to the me of this dimension. If I can somehow find information in my journals that tells me about my counterpart's interdimensional encounters, then we can get out of here sooner." He glanced over to Emmett, who was still unconscious. "Not that I really do want to leave, now. I know how I would feel if I'd wake up on the couch and have no idea how I got there, except for some weird memory of seeing another him that he'd no doubt write off as a weird dream. He might even convince himself he really is crazy, considering that he's seen another him."

Marty nodded, briefly, and accepted the saxophone as Emmett headed off. After a few moments of uneasiness, he briefly looked it over, put the upper end to his mouth, and started playing one of his favourites, 'Johnny B. Goode'. It didn't really come out as well as it did on guitar, mostly because of the fact that he couldn't sing the song while playing, but soon, Marty did find himself enjoying the experience. He smiled while playing, and as he finished, he soon went into another oldie – Earth Angel, the other song he'd played on that fateful night, and then 'Back In Time', the song Huey Lewis and the News had released when 'Teens In Time' hit the theatres in July of 1985.

As he happily played, he really found himself enjoying the sensation. Maybe this dimension wasn't too bad after all. He glanced at Emmett, who was still sound asleep, and continued playing. Even if they weren't going to get home today, he'd at least get something pleasant out of this world.

oooooooo

Doctor Emmett Brown sighed, as he sat down to the worktable in his other self's lab. He'd just found the journals his other self owned, and was about to go through them, pushing aside the feelings that told him that this was not really allowed. After all, these journals were from another him, so he should have the ability to look inside of them, shouldn't he? Just because the incidents inside hadn't happened to him didn't mean he was not allowed to have a look at them.

Maybe, though, the feelings were more of another side – that the truth inside was too horrific for him to take. After all, Clara and the boys were nowhere to be seen – but they hadn't been there in the second reality they visited either, and the family still lived in the house Doc lived in, and while, in the fourth reality, the house had been empty, Emmett was still married to Clara and the boys. Why would two wrongs that each turned out fine before be so terrible?

Doc sighed, and opened the journals, not really wanting to face his thoughts. He skipped a few pages, and finally ended up at something interesting, in November of 1955. There was no mention of Marty's visit at all, while the flux capacitor still was conceived on the fifth. And as the inventor skipped more pages, wondering if the visit had come later, there still was no mention. Finally, he finished the book, but there was no Marty McFly anywhere. Curious, he took the second book, the one about the 1960s.

As the visitor worked himself through this book, he still didn't find any reference to his teenaged friend. He finished the entire book at around one-thirty-five P.M., and was astonished to not find any reference to Marty, while 1968 should've passed already. _Strange_, Doc thought. _It's almost like he was never…_

Suddenly, the visitor gasped. If this was true… He made his way out of the room, passed an unconscious Emmett and Marty playing the saxophone, who frowned at him. Doc stopped at the end of the main room, getting his jacket back on again as he turned to his confused friend.

"I have to check something, Marty" he told his friend. "I'll be back before two. There's just some theory I've come up with after reading in the book, and I want to make sure if I'm not imagining things. Trust me, I'll be back sooner than you think… and no, I will not time travel to do that."

Marty smirked. "Yeah, right" he muttered. "See you, Doc."

The inventor nodded, as he headed outside and got into the time bus. Carefully not to disturb the locals, he switched on the flying circuits control switch, and let the bus rise up. He then flew over to Hill Valley library.

However Doc had not quite felt like he should do this, he really wanted his suspicions to be denied or proved right. The indecisively feelings he had made that even more confusing, but he wanted to know, since if he did, he knew exactly why his counterpart had not known who Marty McFly was.

The inventor sighed as he flew the time machine down the street up to the library, and tried to ignore his growing exhaustion. He got out of the car, and headed up into the building. After looking around a bit, he found it looking similar to the building he remembered from home, and walked up to the newspaper section, to be specific, the sections '1965-1970'.

Having a specific newspaper in mind, Doc soon got to the newspaper for Monday, June 10th, 1968. He smiled, satisfied, and started reading the 'Births' section. Soon, he skimmed through it, and knew exactly what he needed to know. Marty was not in there.

"He was never born" Doc whispered. "Amazing." He wondered if this was simply a case of George and Lorraine never meeting, or never getting more than two kids? Well, there was a simple way to find out. He flipped through the pages backwards, and soon ended up by the '1966' newspapers, and found what he was looking for in the April-May-June section, on Monday, April 4th, again, in the births section.

_Last Saturday, on April second 1966, George Douglas McFly and Lorraine Baines gave birth to Linda Lorraine McFly, who was named after her mother. George works at a local company, and Lorraine at a beer factory. This child is the second child of the couple, after David William, age 3, who was born on August tenth, 1962. _

"Amazing" Doc whispered, again. He wondered what it meant that Marty was, indeed, not born, but Linda was, and Dave was, too. Was there something that had happened with George and Lorraine in particular around the time of Marty's conception? Doc decided to move forwards to July-August-September, 1967, to see if he could find something that would help him make his decision, there.

The newspapers were, surprisingly enough, not showing any information concerning the McFly family that would've effected them in a way as to not have kids at all. The inventor frowned. "I wonder what's happening" he muttered. "That information should be there – what can have happened that would've caused Marty not to be conceived? Well, if it's not in the newspapers, it must be only known to their family – which I'm not going to confront, if they never saw me as the friend of their youngest. Luckily we did not head there first, but went to my counterpart's house this time."

The inventor then chuckled, as he realized he was talking to himself. "Well, I don't think there's any more for me to do here, now" he told himself, as he packed his stuff. "I'd better go get Marty, and leave this dimension. And see if my counterpart has woken up, in the meantime – although I doubt he could tell me more than I've already concluded from these papers."

As the inventor got in the bus and flew it up again, he found himself being drawn to the time on his watch: nine-fifty-five A.M. It was almost eleven hours ago since he'd last eaten anything in that reality in which he'd encountered the fix him that could not fix the time machine. He could barely imagine how long it had been since he and Marty had first started dimension hopping. Whatever it was, it was certainly a long time. He now realized that, however he tried to deny it, his body wanted nothing more than have some rest. It was becoming closer to thirty hours now, the time he'd been awake, and he really hoped that in the next reality, they could have the ability to lie down and sleep as peaceful as Emmett did on the couch, or at least, he had done when Doc had left to go to the library.

Which, or so Doc found out, as he got in, was still the same. He'd barely had the chance, though, to comment on anything, when he found that fact change in front of his eyes. Emmett started breathing louder, and he made soft sounds. Doc immediately rushed to his bed, then moved away again. "Marty, you go over there" he said, to the startled musician.

"Why?" the teen protested. "He doesn't even know me! You'd better be there to face him with reality right away."

Doc considered that, and figured that, this time, Marty was actually right. He nodded, and headed over to his unconscious counterpart, who was definitely stirring now.

The local inventor let out a groan. "Who's… who's there?" he managed to mutter.

Doc couldn't let this golden opportunity pass. "You" he quipped, smiling.

That did the trick easily. Emmett's eyes widened, and he stared at his other self. "You're… you're… you're… what are you doing here?" he finally settled on.

"I'm you from another universe" Doc said, calmly. "I came here in a time machine that you and I both invented, if I read your journal good enough. I was hoping that you might possibly be able to help me fix my time machine, which has malfunctioned and ended up making us hop through all these alternate worlds. We originally intended to visit just two – that went drastically wrong, as yours is already the seventh reality we visit."

Emmett stared at Doc with obvious fascination, then finally asked: "We? You mean, you took another person along on your time travels?"

Doc nodded. "Martin Seamus 'Marty' McFly – my very best friend, the person that is standing next to me right now." The teen extended his hand and shook Emmett's for a moment, then stepping back again, as Doc added: "You don't know him?"

Emmett shook his head. "No" he said. "The McFly's I know – George and Lorraine, right? – only have one son and one daughter, Dave and Linda. They tried to have more, I heard, but never got to it." He sighed, sadly. "Well, considering that he was a wimp and she an alcoholic, any other kid would have to bear the same circumstances as the other kids had. Maybe it was just as well."

Marty looked shocked at Emmett's revelation – Doc looked just as if he had been confirmed in what he'd thought all along. "Yeah, I kind of figured you didn't know him" he said. "I looked Marty up in the library – there was no birth announcement. Apparently, the major change in this reality is that Marty was never born."

Marty shivered, memories of that first week back to the past coming to mind, and all the trouble he then had. "You mean, like in '55?" he asked. "But even if my other self failed and faded away at the dance, shouldn't your other self know him from that week?"

Doc smiled, slightly, and shook his head. "He should," the older man said, "but you're forgetting something. Emmett here never got a visit from you, since if that week ran like normal and you got erased, _none _of your siblings would've been born, not just you. Dave and Linda do exist here, and from what I've read in that journal, everything went like normal. I even went to check for a time travel change that would've been big enough to make the newspapers in August and September, 1967, since in either of the months you should've been conceived, but nothing ever happened. That is something I should've known from the start, though – if Emmett here had known you from a brief visit around that time, then he would've reacted differently at the door. Even if it had been over twenty years. I still recognized you with ease when I first met you in 1975, which was also twenty years since I last saw you, and you were just seven then. There's barely an age difference between your eventual self-erasing version and you."

To his own surprise, Marty understood most of what Doc was saying. "So, if I didn't exist as a visitor to 1955 and 1967, and Emmett here has never seen me before, does that mean that there was some natural reason that erased me from existing? Something that wasn't time travel related?"

Emmett nodded before his counterpart could. "Apparently so" he said. "I never knew you, so it seems like in this dimension, you were never born, for some reason or another." He looked straight at Marty, a smile forming on his mouth. "So, you met the other me in 1975?"

Marty nodded. "Yeah, on October twenty-sixth" he said. "I was challenged into a skateboard race with a classmate, and I refused, and then, I was locked in a car. Doc came up to me and freed me, and we became good friends soon afterwards."

Emmett smiled. "That sounds interesting" he said. "I wish that had happened to me. I never got a friend around that time – I had to live through my time building a time machine all alone." He sighed. "It was okay, but sometimes, I wished that I had a friend to share things with, which my other self apparently had." He looked at Doc. "Do you know how lucky you are?"

"Yes, I certainly do" Doc said, nodding. "I met Marty in 1955, spent a week with him, then he vanished in a time machine for twenty years until I finally met the younger version of himself through the natural course of time. Those twenty years were the hardest two decades I've ever experienced, and maybe the years between '75 and '85 were even harder, knowing Marty was going to be a good friend of mine but that I should not really push the friendship that was starting since if I did, it might never exist."

"Sounds like you had a hard time, then" Marty said, sympathetically. "I don't know if I could've survived a thing like that."

Emmett sighed. "I can only wish to have something like that happen to me" he said. "During all those more than thirty years before I fixed the time machine..."

"More than thirty years?" Doc asked, surprised. "Not thirty exactly?"

Emmett shook his head. "More than thirty it was, as it took me up until March eleventh 1986 until I finished the machine, and up until June fifth 'till I could properly test it. I travelled to 2016 with it, got myself a rejuvenation overhaul, and decided I would spend the rest of my years travelling through time. That was especially necessary, once I found out what happened to me in the original version of history."

"What was that, then?" Marty asked, curiously.

Emmett provided the answer almost immediately. "On June ninth, 1986, I had been shot to death by the Libyan terrorists that provided me the plutonium. I was buried in a cheap grave – I visited it in the future – and there was nothing anymore heard from me again. The world in 2016 looked terrible – there was a huge amount of poisonous gasses in the air, and a Nuclear World War was on the verge of breaking out. That was when I decided that I couldn't let this happen. I headed back to the past to get my stuff and moved to a year and a half later, making sure to leave evidence behind where the police could catch the Libyans on. I arrived on December ninth last year, and started working on my new project – fusion power, clean energy to make sure the future would be changed." He looked at Doc, smiling. "On January twentieth, I finally had the courage to go ahead and check, and everything had changed. I was still alive, and living in a mansion, the world had clean energy, and there were flying cars around. I visited my older self, and he told me that he was leading a happy life, improving the world's status. I then decided that I would do everything to live as long as I could, so that I could improve the world as much as possible. So, that's what I've been doing the past months, working on fusion power, and time travelling through my favourite era's." He looked at Doc. "Though, if you are actually married, judging from your wedding ring, I suppose that there could've been a happier life for me. Maybe I should try to meet this person you've apparently met… what's her name?"

"Clara" Doc said, softly. "Clara Clayton. But I would not advise you to meet her. If you go meet her now, or at least in 1885, you'll never know if the feeling you are experiencing is real love or hope that it is real love because another version of you loved her. You should've met her due natural ways."

Emmett was not about to let his hope for love slide away. "I suppose" he said. "What if I go meet her about one year from now? That's still some time away."

Doc considered that for a moment. "That might work, but I still think it does contain a huge risk factor" he said. "But then again – you're not me, I can't control what you do. What you want to do is up to you. I'm just warning you for potential unwished results." He looked at Emmett. "Do you understand?"

The local nodded. "Oh, I certainly do" he said. "I'm a scientist, you know, and a scientist should be scientific about things like this."

"Exactly" Doc said, nodding. "Now, do you or do you not want to have a look at the time machine? Since if you don't, Marty and I are perhaps better off leaving this reality. We've been hopping for some time now, and you are a possibility to fix the time machine, so…" He shrugged. "I'd say yes, but I can't speak for you."

Emmett looked at Doc. "No, thank you" he said. "I haven't time travelled all that much, yet, and my current time machine has, while it's still intact, broken it's fuel line on a trip to 1888 last week. I had to push it up with a steam train in order to get home… and also, I had to put some once-in-a-time replacement for the broken time circuits case display. It's better this way… if you had any sense of what's right, you'd better leave, since I can't help you, unfortunately."

Doc nodded, and Marty did, too. "You're right" the first of the two said. "We shall go now, then. Marty, come on – we want to leave as soon as possible."

The teenager groaned at having to jump through dimensions again, but he simply followed Doc to the time bus. As they were about to enter, they had noticed Emmett coming outside and gazing at the time bus.

"It's quite amazing" he admitted, looking at it with fascination. "Maybe I should have created a time machine out of something like this, too. If I ever do end up getting a family, or a friend like you have, it's much easier to get around in."

Doc nodded. "That's a good possibility" he said. "But if I were you, I'd take care of getting that family first, and then worry about having a time machine big enough to get them all inside."

Emmett smiled. "You have a point" he admitted. "Well, anyway – for your sakes, I hope this is farewell."

Doc chuckled. "Yeah, I think we both agree on that" he said, getting in and joining Marty. "Have a nice day."

Emmett then waved to him, as Doc lifted up the time bus, and started accelerating over the street, headed in the direction of the Square, this time around. "Marty, brace yourself" he said. "We're dimension travelling again, and who knows what we might expect."

"What's the destination this time, Doc?" Marty asked, noticing they had just hit seventy and were accelerating rapidly.

"April second, 1988, at twelve-forty-five P.M." he said. "Which is about three hours ahead of our usual time minus one day."

"Twenty-one hours in the past, you mean" Marty muttered, faintly annoyed. "Let's get through with this, then. I can't wait to be home, and I hope that this dimension will finally be it."

"I'm hoping that as much as you do" Doc said, as they hit eighty-eight miles per hour, and got instantaneously transported to the new reality. "But we shouldn't get our hopes up too much… Great Scott!"

Marty looked at the inventor, who had gasped, and then stared out of the window, realizing that he would've done just the same. Everything looked different. The buildings looked run-down but in state of repair, and there seemed to be more nuclear waste around. It did look like it was repairing itself from whatever disaster had struck, though, and it was doing that rapidly.

"Where are we, Doc?" he asked, curiously. "The buildings look like this is Biff's world again… but shouldn't everything be in an even _worse_ condition, then? Things look actually pretty good here, compared to that world."

Doc turned to his friend. "I think I have to disagree with that first statement" he said. "For all we know, something might've happened to cause this reality to clean up in the years afterwards. We never saw the Tannen-controlled version of Hill Valley past October twenty-seventh, after all, and for all we know, Biff might've been shot in a gang war, which was raging around that time, and his son, Cliff, might not have been that bad."

Marty looked at Doc in a manner that made clear that he was highly doubting that. "I wouldn't be so sure of that" he said. "I know Cliff, he's bullied Dave around in High School, and he's an asshole. If anything, he'd happily leave town in the state it was in, as long as he had power. No, if Cliff was in power here, everything would've still been the same as in the Hell Valley we saw, even if it was only because he was too lazy to sign the order to have it be repaired."

Doc smiled slightly. "Yeah, that might be true" he said. "Well, we're almost at the Courthouse Square now – I suppose you might get the answer to the question if what you assume is right in just a few moments."

Marty looked at him, frowning. "You mean, we aren't leaving right away?" he asked. "Don't you see the evidence, Doc? This has to be _Hell Valley_! We couldn't survive in here, with Biff hating me and you being supposed to be committed and all…" He sighed. "I don't want another repeat of what originally happened on the early night hours of Saturday, October 26th, 1985, Doc."

The scientist knew exactly what his friend was talking about, and shuddered at the memory. "Ah, yes, indeed" he said. "Neither would I want to go through the experience of Monday, September 7th, 1885 again. Don't worry, Marty… I'll do my best to make sure that either of us are safe. I just don't want to take the risk that this is a restored Hell Valley in which technology has been making jumps after Biff being defeated. We can't be sure enough, after all, to just go ahead and leave."

Marty growled, not entirely sharing that statement. "Just get on with this, Doc" he muttered. "I just wanna go home."

Doc nodded, understanding. "I know, Marty" he said, sympathetically. "I do want that, too. But first of all, we have to find a version of me who is able to help us, who also has technology to do that. It would be nice if we could find some of the latter, in here."

Marty sighed. "All right, then" he said. "Let's face things here."

At that point, the time machine flew into the Square, and found it surprisingly quiet for the Hell Valley they remembered. The sex shops that had been around years before were closed down, and on the former place of the 'War Zone' building a new Café was rising, with 'Lorraine's Café' on top of it. Marty and Doc both felt shocked at the rejuvenations the town square had gone through, but that didn't give half the impact the new version of the Courthouse gave.

At his first look, Marty didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved. The Pleasure Paradise was still there, yes, and some nuclear smoke was hanging around it. But it looked like it had gotten a clean-up job, and the 'Biff's' on top of it was completely gone. As the two time travellers looked down at the place where 'Biff's Pleasure Paradise' had once been, they now saw it had been replaced by a 'Lorraine Baines' Hotel' sign, with in the middle of it the face of Marty's Mom, who, surprisingly enough, looked more like she was in her twenties than in her forties. Money could do that, apparently.

"Fascinating" Doc muttered. "This looks like it's an amazing reality, don't you think, Marty?"

The teenager faintly nodded, but Doc ignored his friend's lack of enthusiasm. "Fascinating" he whispered. "I wonder how this change came to be?" He pondered that for a moment, then started accelerating again. "Well, seeing as the library was on the verge of being emptied in 1985, I suppose there's only one way to find out."

Marty looked at Doc, in an odd way. "Doc, what are you doing?"

"Hang on!"

That was the simple warning the inventor gave, as the time bus landed with a thud on the roof of the former Pleasure Paradise. Marty was breathing faster than usual, not from the bumpy landing but from the fact that he knew where they were, and didn't like it at all. "Doc, I wanna go" he insisted. "Now."

"We can't, not unless I'm sure this reality offers nothing to help us" Doc said, apparently intruiged at everything. "And we could perhaps gather some information from the people inside."

Marty did not like that thought. "Doc, this is Hell Valley!" he exclaimed, frustrated. "And even if Biff is gone somehow, that still doesn't mean things are safe and all right here! I want to leave, Doc, and I want it now!"

Doc sighed. "Marty, you have to reconsider our options" he said. "If this reality is rapidly improving, maybe there are already hints for technology that is even ahead of our times. We should try to find that out. You do want to get home, do you?"

"Yeah, but right now, I'd rather leave" Marty said. "I wanna go, Doc. Can't you just take the bus up in the sky and leave this world?"

Doc shook his head. "Sorry, no. Aren't you the slightest bit of interested in this world?"

That was enough to make Marty mad. "Interested?" he shouted. "This is horror! I want to get out of here, and if you won't do that, I'll get myself out." He then walked over to Doc, pushed his friend none-too-softly aside, and turned on the flying circuits.

Doc frowned. "Marty, what are you doing?" he asked.

"Leaving" the teen said. "Computer, turn on time circuits." The time machine did so. "Input Destination: April second, 1988, at high noon." He turned to Doc, accelerating with a smile. "See? I told you I was leaving now…"

Doc smiled back at him, something that confused Marty – was something up? Before he could speculate more on that, though, Doc suddenly showed a sleep-inducer, and held it in front of Marty's face.

"Hey, you ain't sleep-indu" Marty called out, but then, Doc activated the device. "…cing me" the teen finished, and then, he dropped down onto the horn, which made a loud sound, and then, everything was quiet again, and Marty was sound asleep.

Doc let out a faint smile, unable to resist himself from doing so, then looked at the sleep-inducer. "Four-hour-setting" he muttered. "That's good… means I've got time until a few minutes to five before Marty here wakes up." He stared at his friend, then gently removed the younger man from the horn, which went off another time as he did so, and put Marty back onto his seat. The teen remained limp as he did so, just snoring quietly.

Doc then took another good look at his friend, to make sure he was out of it, and then, he easily moved the time bus back to where it was before. Even the landing didn't wake up Marty, which was only logical after so much time of exhaustion. Doc then headed out, and locked the bus, to make sure no one would steal it and kidnap Marty. After taking care of that, he walked over the roof and headed inside through the small entrance that was still on top of the hotel.

The new version of the Paradise looked pretty much like Doc remembered… or at least, until he really entered the hallway. Everything looked well decorated, and there was clear evidence that the person that ruled this place was not a Tannen, judging from the style in the wallpaper. Doc whistled in fascination as he looked around, and then continued walking until he found the elevator.

Figuring that on the twenty-seventh floor, he could possibly run into the alternate versions of Marty's relatives, Doc tapped in his destination, that being the first floor, and relaxed as the thing shot down through the entire building.

While Marty had, Doc hadn't gotten a clear view from the Pleasure Paradise except for the outside, and was pretty impressed by what he saw. Judging from Marty's initial disgust at the building, it had been a lot worse two-and-a-half years earlier. Today, however, over thirty-two years after the timeline had been skewed off into the 'A' line, everything didn't look too bad.

Arriving at the ground floor, Doc headed straight for the receptionist. She was a young woman who looked to be about twenty, and had a charming smile. "Hi" she said. "Welcome to Lorraine Baines' Hotel." Doc wondered why Lorraine used her maiden name here. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

The scientist nodded, keeping himself as calm as one could possibly be in a Biff-ruled world. "Do you happen to have a library around here, or something like that?" he asked. "I'm a historicist, and I arrived just today from Washington. I want to do some research on Hill Valley history. You do have a fascinating town here."

The woman frowned. "It wasn't all too well up until two years ago" she said. "Biff Tannen, the former husband of Miss Baines, used to bully every male and harass every woman in town, and he shot quite the few people, too. He built nuclear waste dumps, and it was all thanks to him that President Nixon still ruled." She smiled. "Luckily, those days are over now. Ever since miss Baines shot Tannen on New Year's Day of '86, the town has been improving. It has been just little over two years, but Hill Valley is looking way different from how it was back then."

Doc nodded, having noticed that as well. "Yeah, I saw that" he said. "Now, do you or do you not have a library around here?"

The woman did not seem to be upset or in any way affected by his rudeness, and pointed at the elevator. "Yeah, it's on the third floor" she said. "Just go left as you exit, and then it's the fourth door on your right. Miss Baines has set up a pretty large library ever since her husband died, so that his terrors should never be forgotten, and that Hill Valley would never become the state it was in the early '80s, again."

Doc nodded, understanding – he'd feel the exact same way, if he was a citizen of this terrifying world. "Well," he said, smiling, "then I'll go now. Have a nice day, miss."

The young woman nodded, and Doc then walked away, thoughtfully. He wondered just how the world in here was like, but he didn't want to find out by facing reality. Instead, he would go for the stacks of newspapers that were obviously in the library on the third floor.

It took some time for Doc to follow the receptionist's instructions to the letter, and by the time he entered the library, he could see on a clock that it was about one-thirty P.M. already, which meant that it was ten-thirty A.M. to the inventor's biological clock. It had been almost twenty-three hours since he'd called Marty to come over and test the new machine, and over twenty-two since they made their first dimension hop. Amazing.

Figuring that there was no time for amazement right now, the inventor headed over to the nearest book case, and grabbed a few newspapers from it to check the date… March 16, 1982. He had to find something more recent. Not discouraged immediately, he moved on, and a few feet further, he pulled out another paper. January 7, 1983. Still not good.

This time, the scientist moved about two yards before grabbing another paper, which, ironically enough, read October 26, 1985… a copy of the newspaper Marty had held when confronted by Strickland. "Almost" Doc whispered to himself, and skipped a few more newspapers, finally arriving on the date he was looking for.

Huge was his surprise when nothing appeared there. Confused, Doc checked the date, and started to search through the papers afterwards, wondering if the receptionist had been lying about Biff's death. But no, she hadn't. In the newspaper that belonged to Thursday, January 9th, the news was finally revealed in a big way. Somewhat astonished at why it took so long, Doc read the paper.

**_BIFF TANNEN MURDERED_**

_Local Toxic Waste Owner Shot To Death_

_Thursday, January 9th – Yesterday evening, Lorraine Baines-McFly-Tannen, widow of the murderer, finally revealed the truth to the news that many people have been suspecting for so long: Biff Howard Tannen, owner of three-quarters of the businesses in Hill Valley, Grass Valley, Sacramento and other surrounding areas of the town, has been shot to death by his wife, Lorraine, and the body has been dumped in Clayton Ravine. Almost twenty-eight years after Biff first started getting rich in March of 1958, he is no longer with us, and Hill Valley can go onto the path to restoration. _

_The town looks very happy, now. In fact, things haven't been like this anymore since the 1960s, and everyone is expressing their joy about the fact that Biff Tannen is dead. The police has volunteered to clean up the town, which is now under control of miss Lorraine Tannen, who has said that she'll keep her maiden name from now on, as her current name reminds her too much of her horrible husband. _

_Everyone is now looking forward to the future. Everything will certainly turn out to be better, now, or at least better than things were before Biff got shot. _

Doc smiled, as he finished reading the newspaper. However he wasn't the type to kill, he had to admit that reading about Biff's death was somewhat satisfying, knowing what kind of things Biff-A had done. If he had been in Lorraine-A's position, he probably would've done the same thing.

Sighing, the inventor looked at the roof, and wondered just what all had happened after Biff had been killed. Surely Lorraine had to have cleaned up the town, as the newspaper evidenced. Curious what exactly had happened, Doc looked through more of the newspapers, and found out interesting things.

In 1986, Lorraine Baines had indeed made an effort to 'clean up the town'. A lot of buildings had been removed, and, with some help from Biff's money, they had set up a large hospital on the outskirts of town, in which nuclear waste victims could be helped to cure. Also, Lorraine had given some of the money to her kids. Cliff had been framed for the murders that his father had committed during the '80s, and also for the mysterious disappearance of Doc and Marty's other selves, on the evening before Biff had been shot. Doc frowned at that, especially when reading something about a DeLorean being involved, as well as two identical twin girls, labelled as 'the Parker twins'. Something weird was going on here, fourth-dimensionally speaking. Doc figured that his other self hadn't vanished – he'd simply time travelled and thereby no longer lived on in Hell Valley.

Skipping some more pages brought more interesting news for Doc. Lorraine was currently, or so the newspapers said, conducting a search for 'Calvin Klein', to help her rule Hill Valley the right way. The newspapers boldly stated that Lorraine was in love with Calvin again, and wanted him to be found no matter what it cost. The visiting inventor gulped for a moment – even with the thirty-year-difference taken into consideration, his Marty was in danger here. If Lorraine had cured herself from the breast enlargements and caused herself to look like she was in her twenties again, she could easily gain a crush on Marty, who, to her knowledge, couldn't be her son, who after all had vanished two years ago.

"Amazing" the inventor whispered, again, as he stared at the newspapers. He now knew what had led to this world turning out like it did, now, over the past two years, but now, his attention was drawn to the history of his other self, and of Biff's other self. What all had happened between 1958, the day of Biff's first win, and 1985? He hadn't really given himself time to explore that history on their first visit, but now, with Marty being unconscious and, due the fact that this was dimensional travel, no erasure fears, Doc found himself having that time. Interested, he walked over to the '1950s' stack of newspapers, and pulled out the paper he'd found on his last visit to this world – the one from March 27th, 1958.

Doc felt disgusted as he stared at their antagonist for so long, grinning broadly and holding a cheque which said he had won one million dollars. Taxes, or so the newspaper said, would take about two hundred ninety-seven thousand dollars off it, but that still made a fortune of more than seven hundred thousand dollars for Biff to win, and Doc kind of figured that this wasn't the end of it, yet.

And it wasn't. Doc skimmed through the Biff-related articles in the years afterwards, finally finding another thing in January of the next year, which said Biff 'won again'. At the one year-anniversary of the day he had his first huge win, Biff was reported as being the 'luckiest man on earth'. Doc growled in anger at that – it hadn't been luck, and he knew it. Calming himself, he read on, leaving the peaceful 1950s and going further with the '60s.

Changes in here came again. Biff married, almost two years before he did in the original timeline, and to a different woman, too: Marilyn Monroe, on December 27th 1961. It had been just two months when he divorced her again, getting to keep almost everything due not having to worry about money problems, which his wife didn't, either, but still, Biff knew for a fact that he'd never get poor again.

Doc found the changes start later. In August 1962, his counterpart's mansion burned down right on schedule, so there wasn't anything off with that yet. The next year, though, Biff started to slowly but surely invest his money in businesses, starting with a pub in the Square, where he met his second wife. Cliff Tannen was born in 1964, and BiffCo in 1967. In '68, Biff divorced his current wife, and in 1969, finally, Doctor Emmett Brown got suspicious. There was a mention of Doc-A joining a 'Rebellious Evil Group To Oppose This Wonderful Rule' led by George McFly and himself, in 1970. There was also a mention of George McFly asking president Nixon for help in '71, and in 1972, there was a failed break-out in Biff's Palace. In '73, though, it had finally happened, and Doc faced the _other_ paper he had stumbled upon on his visit to that horrible world. The paper that reported George-A McFly being shot to death, which they now knew had happened by Biff Tannen's hand.

Things had gone from bad to worse afterwards. After long begging, Biff had finally managed to get Lorraine to marry him in October that year, and Doc-A nor Marty-A had been able to do a thing about it. Biff had treated his kids horribly afterwards, and, in 1974, Doc-A mentioned that 'Biff might have something to do with the Watergate scandal not having as much consequences as I expected it to' which Doc, being from a world in which that scandal had gone on to have major consequences, knew for sure.

Marty and his siblings had left California for boarding schools all across the world on the twenty-first of August, and Doc had been sad to say his would-be friend farewell. As the visiting scientist read on, he found to his surprise a mention on the 'McFly Murder Case Reopened' in February 1975. For a moment, he wondered if the truth had been revealed about Biff being a suspect after all, but how wrong he was. Biff was actually a witness, and revealed to know that Doc-A had, in fact, murdered George.

No evidence had been found against Doc-A, and the grumpy local inventor had been released again a few weeks afterwards. The local had apparently continued his work on the time machine, as far as Visiting Doc could see, but in May 1975, another murder had happened which was again linked to Emmett, and this time Lester, George McFly's childhood friend, was the victim. Wallet Guy had been found shot to death in the parking lot of the Lone Pine Mall, and Biff claimed to have seen Emmett around Lester in the days before his death. No doubt, Doc thought, that Biff was actually the murderer – most likely, Lester 'knew too much' about his friend's unfortunate end and therefore had to be put away for good.

Gambling had been legalized in this reality in 1979, and almost immediately Biff had announced the Courthouse would soon be built into 'Biff's Pleasure Paradise'. As the fateful 1980s started, there was a mention of a robbery at Emmett's garage in April of 1980. Considering how upset the local had been, Doc suspected that Biff had hired some men to do the job, and they had smashed Emmett's works on the time machine.

In early October of 1981, Emmett had finally done what Doc had subconsciously urged his counterpart to do while reading the papers: start another huge protest against BiffCo Industries, trying to push new life into the long disbanded Non-BiffCo Group. But Biff '81 was even more powerful than his early '70s counterpart, and Emmett had eventually given up in late December. In the meantime, though, he hadn't been able to prevent a terrible disaster from striking. On November 29th, 1981, the day Doc remembered as having the first black mayor, Goldie Wilson, be elected, the latter was shot to death, putting an end to his hopes of being mayor, and trying to stop Biff's empire. Biff himself had been elected as mayor of the town not long afterwards, and in an official ceremony in January, 1982, he'd been put into office for no less than ten years.

In July of that year, the Pleasure Paradise was finally ready in all it's ugliness. Lorraine and Biff had moved in, and the matchbooks Marty had taken along from the Paradise on their trip to this world had started being made. In the months afterwards, as Doc was nearing that fateful month, May of '83, he found nothing to provide evidence for Emmett being committed, and he felt very confused about it, until he stumbled across the newspaper for March twenty-sixth, 1983, less than two months before Emmett's commitment.

The local had, on that date, apparently been led to jail again, for the same case as he had eight years earlier. This time, he hadn't been let free until mid-April, and had tried to leave Hill Valley… but it was far too late now.

On May tenth, Emmett was arrested again, for a robbery at the Pleasure Paradise that was obviously fake. There had been sanity hearings, and less than two weeks later, Emmett was dragged off on the twenty-second to the mental asylum. The next day, the all familiar paper was published, reading: 'EMMETT BROWN COMMITTED – Local Crackpot Inventor Declared Legally Insane'. Doc felt horrified, but he knew he couldn't do a thing against it. He would have to bear reading this, and he felt happy knowing this event had never happened to him.

In the months afterwards, the news about the inventor decreased. Just two weeks after his commitment, Emmett had tried an escape on Marty's birthday, but failed. Another try on November twelfth had the same results. As 1984 started and passed on, Doc found nothing about his poor counterpart's fate, who had obviously been locked up. Also, 1985 passed normally, including the twenty-sixth… up until Halloween's day.

The day after that, November first, 1985, reported Emmett escaping from the mental asylum with help of some young boys, one of which was obviously Marty McFly… Doc wondered if his friend had still showed up at Courthouse Square at 1:24 AM on October 26. Anyway, Emmett had escaped, and the next two months included brief mentions of the Tannen gang searching for him. Finally, on January first, he found a news report about them almost being caught, and their 'mysterious disappearance'. Doc wondered what had happened, but he didn't know, and he couldn't travel back to the last day in 1985 and check things out. He wondered why his other self hadn't succeeded in fixing this mess, as Hell Valley was apparently still all right, however it had been taken over by Lorraine, now.

The inventor frowned, then shrugged it off. There had to be some reason why his other self hadn't changed history – maybe he was afraid of fading away, or something like that. Doc knew he would be, and this other version of himself couldn't be too different, if his Marty still liked hanging around him. Wondering what just had happened, Doc looked at the clock again. Two fifty-five P.M.

"Great Scott" the inventor whispered, realizing what this meant. "It's supposed to be almost noon." Around this time twenty-four hours ago, he'd taken off the tarp that hid the bus from view and showed it to Marty. He'd been up on his legs for twenty-eight hours, now, and he knew that he was going to get unconscious soon naturally if he didn't do anything. And of all the worlds he'd seen so far, this was one world where he didn't want to pass out, since this world's him was supposed to be committed, here, and he didn't want to wake up in the mental asylum, and leave Marty totally unaware of his whereabouts.

Sighing, the now seventy-eight-year-old walked through the doorway that lead back to the hallway, trying to ignore his exhaustion. There was no time for that right now, or he'd be way too tired to make his way back to the roof. Hurrying a little, he arrived at the elevator, and as it opened, he tapped in the coordinates of the twenty-seventh floor, having a hard time ignoring the chair in the corner.

The even harder time was about a minute later, when he actually had to go up the stairs to reach the roof. He managed it, however he felt like he could hit the ground every second, and his normal weight felt more like a thousand pounds than his actual weight, which was much lower than that. Finally, he reached the roof, after pausing every new step he was on. He opened the door, and happily let the oxygen, however mixed with some pollution, stream towards him.

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, the inventor heard footsteps on the stairs, and what was an obvious 'hmm' as the person inside saw the door standing open. Not wanting anyone from inside to discover the bus, and wonder how it came there, Doc turned around, more concerned about Marty's safety than about his own. With any luck, he'd be able to explain to whoever was there that he'd gone off for a walk on the roof and was an ordinary visitor to the hotel, hoping that the other person did not know his identity.

The instant he entered the building again, he stopped short in his tracks and gasped at the person who was there, who did know him, after all. He'd never expected this to happen, but now, he was faced with Lorraine Baines, widow McFly, widow Tannen, of the Biff-horrific world.

This Lorraine looked, however Marty had described her as 'big', actually younger than her normal nineteen-eighties counterpart, even younger than the version of her portrayed on the sign on the hotel. If he didn't know any better, Doc would've thought he was facing a Lorraine from the late fifties, early sixties at most. The breast enlargements were gone, reduced by as many restorations that money could buy, and Lorraine looked like she had done on her wedding day in 1961, the only difference now that she was wearing an expensive-looking dress, and wore a lot of jewellery. Doc wondered what had happened in this reality to make this kind of rejuvenation possible. Well, with money, he figured, almost anything could be made true.

Lorraine looked at Doc, then gasped softly. "Doctor _Brown_?" she called out. "Didn't you vanish years ago? You took the Marty's with you and never came back? And which one of them are you?"

The inventor immediately grasped the greater implications of what Lorraine was saying. First of all, she talked about Marty in plural sense, and second, she said something about there being two of him. He wondered if somehow, the local Doc of this world and the other Emmett, from the regular timeline, had gotten together somehow, which would explain the plural. Doc wondered if he was ever going to encounter a world in which these two versions of Marty and himself settled down somewhere, perhaps in the 'good' reality.

But for now, that wasn't important. The inventor whistled, nervously, then stared at Lorraine. "Well," he started, "you see, I was just coming here to visit. Marty – the first one – and I, local Doctor Brown, came here to look at what you made of the world here, now Biff is gone forever."

Lorraine smiled, and nodded. "Ah, I understand" she said. "Shall I show you around the hotel? I tried to get it as nice as possible, although some things still haven't been repaired from what it originally was." She then blushed. "I suppose you kind of understand I wanted to go to your nephew for help? I wasn't sure what became of him, and you know, with both George and Biff being dead and all…"

Doc did understand the implications of what Lorraine was saying, and wondered if he should tell Marty once he'd get back to the bus that Lorraine's crush on him (or at least, on a forty-nine-year-old version of him) was back in full force. If there was one thing certain in this horrifying world, it was that Marty would not like that. He smiled faintly, then looked at Lorraine. "Yeah, I understand" he said. "I don't know where Calvin is, though. I haven't seen him anymore for a long time."

Lorraine looked disappointed at that news, but she at least seemed to accept it. "Well, maybe he'll show up, when he finds out that I'm looking for him" she said. "I was thinking, you know, maybe Cal and I could give our relationship another chance… it has been over thirty-two years after all, and now all of my brothers are dead, maybe kissing him will not feel like kissing my brother, anymore."

Doc was not feeling up to this kind of talk about a relationship that would never come true anyway. "Well, I'm going up to the roof again" he said. "Taking another breath of fresh, lesser polluted air. I liked it there, a lot." He smiled at a confused Lorraine, then headed up the stairs again.

As the inventor entered the roof, double-checking that Lorraine or anyone else wasn't there this time, he chuckled at himself. For a second, he felt like Biff Tannen from this horrifying world would show up and kill him and Marty, while he knew for a fact from those paper articles that Biff Tannen was long gone. He figured that if Marty was awake right now, he'd be checking his back every microsecond. The inventor let out a slight chuckle, and shook his head. No, things were better as it was now, with Marty being back in the bus.

As the scientist entered the time bus after getting past the locks, he found Marty snoring softly, and back in the same position he'd been in when Doc had left him. Doc smiled, slightly, and then decided to wake his friend up again. It was time to go, after all. He hadn't been able to find much about the technology in this world in the library, but from the knowledge he'd gained about Hell Valley's past, he was about 99.999 percent sure that there wasn't anything any better than there was at home. He smiled, faintly, and gave his friend a gentle shake. "Marty" he whispered. "Wake up."

The teen let out a soft groan, then rolled over to his side. "I'm sleepin'" he muttered. "I don't wanna wake up."

"Marty, we're going to leave this reality."

Marty rolled back again, pushing his head into the soft chair as the nearest replacement for a pillow. "You can do that without me" he muttered. "Let me sleep."

Doc sighed, realizing just why Marty was as tired as he was. The sleep-inducer had been on the 'four hour-setting' when he knocked his friend out with it: it had been little over two, now. Marty was still set to be unconscious for the next two hours, so it was only logical if he felt exhausted, even though he, in fact, had spent five hours asleep of the past twenty-four hours of travelling through dimensions, while the inventor hadn't. Doc did, at this moment, actually feel fine, having recovered from his previous exhaustion attack. He sighed, looking at Marty and focusing at the task at hand. "Marty" he tried, one more time. "We're going to leave. Can you please at least open your eyes for that hop so you won't be too surprised once we'll make the actual transition."

That seemed to do the trick. Marty, finally realizing that his friend wasn't going to go away any time soon, opened his eyes, and stared at Doc first, and then at the time circuits. "When are we going?" he asked, appearing sincerely interested. Most likely, he wanted something simple to focus on, that wouldn't be too difficult to grasp in his current state of half-awake mind, but still would provide the trick of keeping him awake.

Doc provided him with the needed information by tapping it in, by the keypad this time for a change, then repeating it for his friend. "Saturday, April 2, 1988, at 12:06 P.M." he prompted. "Exactly three hours into this reality's past, and twenty-four into ours. In other words, it's the time we left to go to the ravine in our reality."

Marty gasped, softly. "You mean we've been at this for just almost a day? It feels like it's been forever since I got over to your house, wondering what kind of experiment you were going to drag me in this time."

Doc couldn't resist a soft chuckle. "That's only natural" he assured his friend. "You've been up and running for nineteen hours of that time – you should be feeling exhausted, and that might make you feel like it's been so long. Normally, we aren't awake all day, and not so many things happen as in the past day."

Marty sighed. "I suppose" he muttered, staring at the half-bright sky, hoping that it would wake him up. Even after two years, there still was a polluted background in the air, which hit it hard again where they were. "You said we're going to leave now, didn't you Doc?"

The inventor nodded. "Yes, I did" he said. "Hang on." Turning to the controls, he added: "Activate flying circuits." As the time machine went up in the air, he then sat down, and hit the gas.

The bus chugged through the sky, moving faster as it was accelerating, although not too fast, being stopped from doing that due to the wind. Eventually, they arrived back in the close proximity of the building Emmett used to live in, the garage, which was now abandoned, and finally, the time machine hit eighty-eight miles per hour. Doc and Marty held on as the machine vanished from what was now Lorraine Baines' world with triple sonic booms and bright, intense flashes of light, and made the transition to the other dimension, leaving Hell Valley behind forever.


	8. Chapter 8

Author's Note: Smart!Marty Chapter.

**Chapter Eight**

Saturday, April 2, 1988

12:06 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

As the familiar lights that were caused by the dimensional displacement cleared up again, Doc noticed the time bus was now moving at sixty-something directly towards the place the garage was supposed to be. Wondering what that building would be like in this world, the inventor didn't take the controls, but instead let the machine slowly move forwards until the building was actually reached, not noticing a lack of other buildings at the road.

What the inventor saw as he looked down, thoroughly surprised him. The garage was there, yes, but it looked like it wasn't much lived in. This definitely wasn't their world, then. What surprised the scientist even more, was the sight he saw as he followed the path that led from the garage up to the top of something that appeared to be a hill. It was all too familiar, and the thing he saw next only confirmed that.

On top of the hill, a mansion was standing, and from the sights of it, it looked exactly the same as the one that was finished seventy-six years ago, eight years before Doc's birthday. It was the building that he'd lived in as a youth, and as a grown-up, the building that he had received both of Marty's visits to 1955 in, and, eventually, the building that he had been forced to live away from since the night of August first to August second, 1962, as in that night, it had burned down after an experiment gone wrong, destroying Doctor Emmett Brown's home and a huge part of his parents' possessions in a large fire. To see it standing again was more than strange, it was probably disturbing, Doc concluded.

Marty gasped, too, at the sight of the house he'd lived in twice before. "Holy shit, the mansion's back?" he exclaimed, asking a question which he already knew the answer to, seeing it in front of his eyes. "I wonder what caused that, and why it never burned down."

Doc shrugged. "I don't know" he said. "I have to admit, it kind of puzzles me too… Great Scott!" The inventor gasped, staring at a sign in front of the mansion, and at the familiar shape of horses running around in the grass fields before and behind the house. "Marty, you probably have better eyes than I… does it really say there 'Emmett Brown's _Horse Ranch_?"

Marty blinked, then looked down, and nodded, astonished. "Yeah, you're right" he muttered. "It does say that. I wonder why your other self from here went into horse breeding instead of pursuing a career in science… were you ever interested in that, Doc?"

The inventor thought for a moment, then nodded. "Not that in particular, but I did like horses in the late 1920s, and I figure that, if I had never read Jules Verne at age eleven, I might have done something with that… I figure I'd try to be an animal doctor then, considering my fascination with animals around that time, and that was the closest thing to being a cowboy. I wonder why my other self, if he never read Jules Verne, didn't do that. It was what my parents would've liked me to do prior to reading Jules Verne's works, as it would be a good way to put my intelligence to use, while still doing something that I enjoyed."

Marty nodded, understanding. "Well, I'm sure we'll find out about the ranch thing once we touch down to the ground" he said, yawning, as his exhaustion came back from vanishing for a moment after seeing the weird sight down below. "We are going to stop here, aren't we? I could kill to have some sleep…" He yawned again, and looked down. "Anyway, I doubt that, with the mansion still being around, there would not be place for us inside. If your other self recognizes us as who we are, he'd be more than willing to provide us some place to sleep." He frowned. "I think."

"Yeah" Doc nodded, although not as enthusiastic. "He might be… well, I suppose he will be, but we can never be certain." He piloted the bus downwards, and softly landed in front of the mansion, careful not to hit the horses in their descend. After finishing things up with the locks, he turned to Marty. "I guess we'll both head for the door this time" he said. "I don't want to surprise my counterpart, but I'm sick of waiting behind the side wall – and I suppose you aren't really up to that, either."

Marty smiled, faintly, and nodded. "You got it, Doc" he said. "I'm kind of sick of that, right now. I just hope the other you will be able to help us this time. If you never read Jules Verne, I doubt you'd have any understanding of the technology in a regular time machine, let alone that futuristic bus." He whistled. "Y'know, I wonder if I'm even friends with you, here? In our world, you were considered kind of weird, at least, but you did care for small children like I was. I wonder how things went here."

"Let's not draw early conclusions" the inventor decided, and started walking up to the mansion, soon arriving at the porch. "We'll find out how things happened sooner or later." He rang the bell, and waited for a few seconds before turning to his friend, satisfied. "And judging from the footsteps I'm hearing, I doubt it'll be later." Marty nodded, and they both waited for the door to open.

As the door swung open, the person behind it was not the guy Doc and Marty expected. It was the local Marty McFly… with brown hair that was a complete mess, a lab coat, and protection glasses. The local let out a gasp as he saw the visitors. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, and instantly turned to a dumbfounded visiting Marty. "Why in the name of Sir Isaac H. Newton am I seeing a person who externally appears to have the same subatomic molecular structure as I do? What happened, counterpart? An unfortunate accident with one of the temporal field warping and transportation vehicles from the times that have yet to come from the world's current perspective?"

"Um… no" Marty muttered, baffled. "Are you sure you shouldn't talk to Doc instead?"

Local Marty frowned, too. "Why are you using simplistic words?" he asked. "And aren't you a 'doc'? Doctor Martin Seamus McFly, PhD in quantum physics?"

While Doc smiled and whistled, obviously amazed at this weird change, Visiting Marty's face drained off all colour. "No" he whispered, his face going as white as a sheet. "No… no, I can't be a scientist! I was never interested in science!"

"Oh yes, you were" Local Marty argued. "On my eighth birth anniversary, my direct ancestors one generation removed gave me Jules Verne's book 'Twenty Thousand Miles Under The Sea' as a birthday present, because I had done so good in the seventh grade the past year. Once I read it, I knew I should devote my life to the wonders of science. My male ancestor one generation removed always taught me that if I put my internal functions systems to it, I could accomplish anything, and I've always held that as a truth. According to him, my supposedly incredible intelligence should not be put into unnecessary uses, but instead go to a subject in which I can fully express my full variation of utterly detailed and specialized talents."

"I got as far as the male ancestor part" Visiting Marty muttered, feeling like completely freaking out. "What's going on, here? How can you be a doctor, and be so incredibly smart? Even Doc doesn't talk in that kind of big words – and I mean Doc _Brown_, not me! I'm still in college, and I'm not studying science! I never wanted to be a scientist, I want to be a rock star! Don't you like music?"

Local Marty frowned. "Yes, I do appreciate the art of playing music, and I sometimes do enjoy doing so" he said. "I do have some guitar skills, apparently, but I never developed them too much. I just preferred science as a line of profession. It's not like I never was interested in music, then. You are planning to make music your line of profession? You never were even remotely interested in quantum physics?"

The teenager shook his head. "No" he said. "I understand it a little, and some things are kind of fun when you read about it, but I never really thought of it as something I could do. It's way too hard for me. I gather it isn't for you?"

The local shook his head. "No" he said, deciding to switch to some easier words for his counterpart to understand. "I always had a talent for things like that, from Kindergarten on. This is fascinating, you know. So, if you're not from the past or from the future, seeing as you appear to be the same age as I am and do not have the same intelligence, where are you from?"

Doc cleared his throat, speaking this time. "That's a good question" he said. "We're…"

Suddenly, the talk of the three people at the front door was disrupted by some loud saxophone playing. Emmett Brown entered, holding up a saxophone and playing 'Night Train' on it. He froze in his tone – literally, he made a hard chilly noise with the saxophone – as he saw the visitors standing at the door. "Holy shit!" he called out. "Marty, what went wrong with your exparements this time?"

"Experiments" the local teen corrected.

"Whatever."

Doc frowned at his other self's inability to say such a simple word the right way, then turned to both Local Marty and Doc. "I suppose there's a long explanation for this and a short one, both of which I would more than willing to give to you both, but since it'll be getting colder out here when the day passes further – believe us, we know – I'll give you the short one first: we're from another dimension, in which I invented a time bus in which we could travel through dimensions. After two visits, we tried to get home, but it failed, and we've been hopping through worlds ever since, and this is the fifth world we visit, not including a world in which we stayed no more than a few minutes, just long enough to discover that it was not home, and that something was wrong with the DFSCUPCIF – the Dimensional Flux Storage Capacitor Unit as well as Purposely Creator of an Interdimensional Field, which is what makes dimensional travel possible – and try another jump. We are really anxious to go home, as right now, it might be twelve-twenty P.M. on April second to you, it's twelve-twenty P.M. on April third to us, and I have not slept and we both have had very little food and rest since we first departed, yesterday – today, from your perspective – around this time of day, a little earlier actually."

"_That _was the short explanation?" Emmett quipped. "Boy, I'm not looking forwards to the long one…"

Local Marty, however, was fascinated with Doc's story, and his slate-blue eyes narrowed as he took it all in. "Different dimensions" he whispered, with awe. "Fascinating. I've done some research for it for my final exam – I did not dare to chose time travel because I did not want to either do a bad job or reveal my theories to a world that might be not ready and responsible enough for temporal field warping and transportation – but I never saw one for actual, and I never expected to encounter one either. I gather from what I've already seen that, in your world, you are the one with the greater intelligence, and my counterpart doesn't have that amount of intellect as we do?"

"That certainly appears to be right" Doc says, nodding enthusiastically. "Well, um… can we come in, now? I'm beginning to get rather tired from standing out here, and I suppose Marty is, too. We haven't slept for some time, now, and standing on our feet would, while keep us awake, not be really gentle to our systems."

"Um… be my guest" Emmett offered, baffled at the whole situation. "Come in, seat yourself." He looked at Doc. "Do you have a mansion, too, where you, uh, where you come from?"

"Yes, I do" Doc said, nodding. "It did burn down quite some time ago, though. In 1962. It happened because of a science experiment gone wrong. I guess that, since you never got interested in science, you never had that experiment, so the mansion never burned down. This is actually fascinating, when you think of it. I wonder what kind of changes are there all, between our worlds. Were you still born on March twenty-third, 1920, to Friedrich Von Braun and Sarah Anna Lathrop?"

Emmett nodded, as the two walked into the hallway, the Marty's following. "Weird" he muttered. "I wonder why that's the same, and so much else was different. Did you read Jules Verne, like my Marty did?"

Doc nodded. "In 1931" he said. "Once reading that, I knew I had to devote my life to science, based on my intelligence and my interest."

"I guess there we find the change" Local Marty said. "Our Emmett, 'Doc' as you two call him, was never recognized as being intelligent, and he simply didn't have any interest for the subject beyond liking it as a school subject. He read the book, thought it was good, put it on the shelves, read it once or twice in a year, but nothing more than that."

"Fascinating difference" Doc said, nodding.

"I completely agree with you on this subject."

For a moment, it was silent, and then, all of the four started laughing. "I guess I'm sort of your interdimensional counterpart, and your Marty is Doc's" Visiting Marty said, chuckling. "It's weird how the roles are swapped around this time. We didn't see anything like that in the previous dimensions."

"It does make me feel a little sad" Local Marty said, sighing. "It also might imply that I'm unique, of course, but still… it's weird to be the only Marty in the multi-universe who has an IQ above 200."

Doc and Visiting Marty gasped. "Serious?" Visiting Marty asked, shocked. "Man, even my Doc doesn't come above 190…"

"Maybe we aren't equals in intelligence after all" Local Marty smirked. "I'm 208. First tested five years ago, and it's been that way ever since. I did learn more information, though, in the meantime – but this is about the capabilities of your brain, not about what you all know."

"I guess so" Visiting Marty muttered, as he arrived in the main room. He then looked around, stunned. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "It's been so long, since I last was here, back in 1955. This really is weird, being in Doc's old mansion again. It's like déjà vu in the truest sense."

"You were in 1955, too?" Local Marty asked, somewhat surprised, as they all sat down. "I kind of wondered if that still had happened to you, since you seem to be so different, overall. Well, I guess there are still similarities, and this happens to be one of them. I gather that, in your world, you were not the one to invent the original version of the temporal field warping and transportation vehicle… the time machine?"

"No, I wasn't" Visiting Marty said, fascinated. "I still can't believe you were. I never was the one to invent – but I guess you are. How did you come up with the time machine idea, anyway? In our universe, it was on November fifth, 1955, when Doc slipped on his toilet edge, which was wet, as he was standing on there hanging a clock. He hit his head on the sink, and that was how he came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, which was what made time travel possible. It did take him thirty years and his entire family fortune to get it working, though, as he didn't unveil the time machine to me until October twenty-sixth, 1985."

"I had it ready on June twenty-third of that year, though" Doc protested.

"Which is still over twenty-nine-and-a-half years, which seems pretty long to me" Visiting Marty said back. He then frowned, as he realized something, and looked at Local Marty. "Especially since you were, if it's the same between our worlds and it should be as you don't look to be older or younger, born on June ninth, 1968… and had, from your birth on, just twenty years to get the time machine to work…"

Local Marty shook his head. "It didn't take me that long" he corrected. "I came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, and thereby time travel, on March seventh 1978. I was a nine-year-old eighth grader around that time, and I was fascinated by the many experimenting possibilities my chemistry set had. I was working out in Doc's garage at something, when I accidentally dropped some water/soap mix and slipped on that. I hit my head against the workbench and was out of it for four hours. I dreamt of glowing Y's flying through my head, and when I woke up, all I could see was an 'Y', and I knew what it meant and why this could realize time travel, so I tried to make calculations right away. I then had to face Emmett, though, who thought that I was going insane, getting up to my feet so soon after being knocked out. I told him that I had an idea, but I didn't tell him what I knew, yet. I spent the next weeks working on that idea, and in mid-April, I had a pretty solid idea of what to do. It took me another seven-and-a-half years, though, before I could make my vision a reality."

"Fascinating" Doc muttered. "It actually took you just seven-and-a-half years to build your time machine? You _are _a genius!"

Local Marty blushed. "I suppose" he said, smiling. "Anyway, I finished my time machine in April 1985, and then, I started working on a clean energy source to fuel it. I finished a clean Fusion reactor in October. It needed an awful lot of trash to work, two garbage cans for one trip, but it worked, at least."

Doc blushed. "I actually used plutonium" he said. "I considered fusion, but I knew I had the deadline of October twenty-sixth to reach and I didn't have enough time or money to spend on Fusion power. Therefore, I got some plutonium from Libyan terrorists, who asked me to build a bomb, and gave them a bomb of pinball machine parts. That didn't end up well, though – they showed up at the experiment, killed me, and Marty fled in the DeLorean and travelled back to the day I first came up with the flux capacitor in the first place. He eventually managed to get me safe, but it was a close call."

"That sounds familiar, but I'll explain the details later" Local Marty said, grinning. "Anyway, three days after installing my reactor, on October twenty-fifth, I invited Emmett to come over to Twin Pines Mall to test out my machine. That night, I showed to him the time machine, at world's first time travel experiment, which, like yours, went drastically wrong…"

"Did some Libyans show up?" Visiting Marty guessed.

"No, government agents" Marty explained. "To keep a long story short, they tried to shoot me for stealing some garbage from other people to use in my fusion reactor, but Emmett jumped in front of me and caught the bullet. I headed back to 1955, at that point, saw my teenaged male ancestor one time removed, and helped carry his weight into the house with my male ancestor through maternal line of ancestry twice removed, a male unit known as Samuel Baines. Unfortunately, my female ancestor once…"

"Could you shut up with the ancestors?" Visiting Marty said, annoyed.

Smart Marty blushed. "Sorry" he apologized. "I was just getting excited, I suppose. Anyway, my female parent was amorously infuated with me, although I didn't realize it, and once I'd headed to Emmett's home and had convinced him I was a temporal traveller, we found out as I was showing him some family pictures that evening. We then headed over to try to get my parents to fall in love with each other."

"Tough job, right?" Visiting Marty said, remembering his own version.

Local Marty nodded, and started telling about what all had happened. About having met up with George McFly that Monday, whom had been sent home after having recovered. He was in love with Lorraine, but didn't want to date her as he knew that she loved Marty instead. Finally, Marty had gotten himself be asked out by Lorraine, and had come up with nearly a similar plan to what he did with George in his world, which was worked out on the evening of the twelfth. So, Marty then headed over to the Square, and worked on connecting the cables.

"So, anyway," Marty continued, "it was nine-fifty P.M. when I had finished up all the cables, after twenty minutes work. I then headed over to the DeLorean, and instructed Emmett what to do. Once more, I tried to convince him that, this time, we shouldn't go as tight on the rules I'd made up for time travel and that he should let me tell him about the future. He didn't agree, though, and had found the letter then, and tore it up. At that moment, a lightning bolt hit, and I decided to go back to the DeLorean and drive backwards, convinced that I should go to midnight instead so that I could bring my friend into safety. After I arrived at the spot I had to be at, I got the pole up and then, I reset the time circuits to October twenty-sixth at…"

Suddenly, he looked up, distracted by an annoying snoring noise. Visiting Marty, sitting on the bench, had fallen asleep.

Local Marty gasped. "What happened?" he asked Doc. "Why did my other self faint?"

"I guess he was tired" Doc said. "It's been over twenty-four hours for us – he should better go to bed, now. You can keep telling your story."

"No way" Emmett said. "You're going to bed, too – you're obviously exhausted. I have place enough for you, and I trust Marty to take care of the bus by himself. Don't worry – I will make sure that he won't try to rebuild your bus into a robot or something like that."

Doc gave him a faint smile. "I'm sure he won't do that" he said, confidently.

Local Marty blushed. "Not immediately, no…"

"Marty!"

Emmett chuckled, slightly, at his friend's all-too-familiar kind of fascination with science, that didn't exist in the worlds around them. "Anyway, you can go to bed, now."

"Thanks" Doc said. "I guess it is time for me to go to sleep, now… and it definitely won't be easy to wake my Marty up." He yawned, for the first time in hours not trying to resist it. "Where is the guest bedroom? Still on the first floor, third door on the right, I take it?"

Emmett nodded. "I suppose things haven't changed too much since when you've last been here" he said. "Don't you live here? Were our differences enough to make you not, you know, get the mansion from your folks?"

"Oh, I inherited it all right" Doc said. "I lost it later, though, when it burnt down on August first 1962. That wasn't the nicest day of my history, I can assure you."

"I suppose" Emmett muttered, feeling bad for his other self. "How did it burn down? It never happened here…"

"The reasons for that are quite logical – for me, at least" Doc said. "I was experimenting… not exparementing, Emmett… in the basement, and some of my chemical liquids caught fire that night. I woke up to see the house burning around me. Seeing as that work was related to the time machine, specifically to alternate ways to generate the necessary amount of electric energy needed, and I am not an inventor in here… you can see the solution, right?"

Emmett nodded. "Yeah, I suppose I do" he muttered. "This is kind of mind-wracking, though. You're lucky it's just two-fifteen P.M., or I might've fallen asleep at your smallish speech. I'm not too good in listening to them."

"Like you evidenced back in 1955, on the night we first met" Local Marty said, grinning.

Emmett blushed. "I don't really like being remembered of that" he said. "It was way too freaky to have a friend for a week, who treated you as a friend but who you'd never seen before, and then have him disappear. Some times, I thought I dreamed it all, but when I asked George and Lorraine about 'Clint', I heard them recall fond memories."

"?" Doc asked, amused. "As in Clint Eastwood?"

"That's the guy" Emmett confirmed. "That was the alias my Marty used, back in the fifties. Clint Martin Eastwood… he'd already fibbed the 'Marty' at his grandparents' house. He came up with it staring at my ideas for the new ranch, and when we looked a fifties western movie together, on the first Sunday. Didn't your Marty call himself that?"

"No, but his first contact with his parents was different" Doc said. "My Marty did push George away from the car, and woke up to a teenaged Lorraine who had, obviously infuated with him, taken off his pants and checked the name of his underwear. Since the brand was 'Calvin Klein', Lorraine assumed that was Marty's name. He did tell the 'Marty', later on, so 'Calvin Martin Klein' it became."

Emmett nodded. "I see" he muttered. "Weird to learn about your altered kind of history, though." He looked up the stairs. "Well, good night. There should be some pyjama's in the cabinet next to the bed."

Doc smiled. "Thanks, Emmett." He then headed up the stairs, and soon arrived at the bedroom.

The inventor changed into the pyjama's, which luckily were his size, and then lied down. _Oh, wonderful…_ And within just moments, he was sound asleep.

oooooooo

Smart Marty grinned broadly, as he and Emmett walked over to the bus. "A time machine" he whispered. "And alternate counterpart of a time machine. Wonderful." He almost drooled looking at it. "I can't believe that your other self was the one to invent it, but it's actually true."

"Should I take that as an insult?" Emmett said, frowning. "What did you need me for, anyway? Seems to me that you can figure out how it works yourself just fine – you never had trouble with that before."

"It's not that" Marty assured him. "You're perfectly right – I'll be able to figure out how the systems in here work just fine. Too bad that the DeLorean is being worked on, now… I'd love to be able to take this thing apart and have a look, while still having an available time machine around, to possibly bring future technology to help. Maybe Clara will want to see this machine, too. She's always been amazed with the DeLorean, and that one wasn't as complicated as this one obviously is… however I've been considering adding some voice-control, which Doc told me about in the hallway."

"Then what is what you need me for?" Emmett asked, realizing Marty was once more getting off the subject.

To tell him what, Marty pressed his thumb to the plate, which immediately flashed red. "See?" he asked. "I'm not cleared to access the time machine. You'll have to go through the procedure in order to let me in. We could perhaps, once we're inside, make the time machine able to get commands from me, too, but maybe that'd bring your other self in trouble, if my other self tries to get away with the machine. Great Scott, it's abnormal that you're the intellectual one there!"

"I feel pretty bad, too" Emmett said, as he did what Marty had requested and pressed his thumb to the plate, which flashed green, but did nothing. "To see how smart I could've been… hey, why isn't the door opening?"

Marty frowned. "It should open, now" he said. "Doc gave me a key, but I don't think that'll help more, as this machine doesn't have a normal lock." He dug the key out of his pocket, and waved it around in front of the machine. "So, maybe we'll have to request… Great Scott!"

Marty looked at the thumbpad, shocked. As he waved the key before it, it suddenly changed to form a hole in the form of a lock. As he'd calmed down, his eyes went wide. "Great Scott" he whispered, grinning excitedly, all his scientific interest coming aboard. "Fascinating! I wonder how it's designed, I wonder how it works, and where it goes? Maybe I can somehow have a look at the inside, I…"

"Marty?" Emmett said, cutting his friend off from going into lecture mode. "Just open it up."

Marty blushed, and then had Emmett press his thumb to the plate, firmly. Within moments, it opened up, easily. "Finally" the teenager muttered, annoyed, and then, he rushed inside.

The nineteen-year-old gawked as he looked around at the impressive interior of the train. "Whoa" he muttered. "This is fascinating. I wonder how it's built."

"Marty…"

"I know, I know." The teenager looked at the time circuits, and almost drooled as he saw the many possibilities. "Look at the displays! There are lots more than in the truck I built… Destination Location, and Destination Dimension, with matching Present and Last Time Departed ones… there's also a map, look! With blips of where we are. And what's that in the corner? 'EJ 57 Hill Valley, Calfornia, United States of America, April 2, 1988, two-forty-seven P.M'… fascinating. The only thing that is wrong is the dimensional code, which is exactly what needs fixing. But the overall is working perfectly fine… look at those 'security' displays – one for each area of the bus! DFSCUPCIF… the flux capacitor of this time machine… control circuits, hover system, map system. I should install this in the temporal field warping and transportation truck too, don't you think, Emmett?"

"Yeah, sure" Emmett said, looking around a bit weirded out. "I do wonder one thing, though – I don't see a switch anywhere. How are you supposed to turn on the time circuits?"

He'd barely finished his line when the time circuits sprung to life, filling themselves with information in green, red and yellow. Emmett jumped back, startled, but Marty was thrilled. "_Voice-ID_!" he called out, astonished. "Actual voice-ID… I have seen things like that in the future, but I never considered installing it. It would come in handy, though." He looked at the circuitry. "Let's see… computer, can you show me the inside of the DFSCUPCIF for closer investigation?"

A red sign flashed immediately on the 'DFSCUPCIF' unit, and a loud alarm sounded for three seconds. Then, the computer calmly said: "No authority. Martin Seamus McFly, aged 19 years, 9 months, 24 days, 22 hours, 34 minutes, does not have proper authority to access the internal functions of this time vehicle. You are friendly asked to remove you from the screen device and not try to access internal functions again."

"Too bad" Emmett said. "So, what now? If you can't get in…"

"I wouldn't be too sure of that" Marty said, getting an idea. "Computer, who has the abilities to give me access to the internal functions?"

"Doctor Emmett Lathrop Brown, PhD" the computer immediately replied.

Marty nodded, then looked at Emmett, a smirk on his face. "Well, Emmett?" he said. "It was you who said before that we shouldn't wake our guest, so I suppose that another version of the person who is needed in order for access to the internal functions will qualify as well."

It took a moment for Emmett to register that – when he did, he shook his head firmly. "Oh, no" he said, shaking his head. "I'm not going to do that. I don't know how it works – I'm not a technician like my other self! Maybe we should wait 'till he wakes up on his own, y'know…"

Marty shook his head immediately. "Out of the question" he said, firmly. "Not only would such an act do us no good, since it would be a pure waste of time, I also didn't come here for nothing. Come on, Emmett. Help me with this."

The not-inventor sighed and stepped forwards. "Um, give Martin Seamus McFly access to the internal function thingies for at least sixteen hours" he said, nervously.

Luckily, his request was immediately followed. "Martin Seamus McFly, push hand to the plate to the right and say a random word."

"Flux" Marty said, pushing his hand to said plate.

"Voice recognized" the computer pleasantly announced. "Martin McFly is now able to access computer functions up until April third, 1988, at 6:55 A.M."

"Good" Marty said, happily smiling. "I repeat: access internal functions."

This time, the DFSCUPCIF appeared on the screen, most likely due to Marty already having clarified what he was looking for before Emmett cleared him. "DFSCUPCIF being projected" the machine announced. "Possibilities to zoom in by 'positive' and 'negative' buttons on side of projection screen."

Marty nodded thoughtfully, then turned to his buddy. "You can go, Emmett" he said. "I don't need you for now."

The horse dealer smiled, glad to get away from it all. "Yeah, it's best to go see my wife" he said, smiling, referring to Jennifer Clayton, a young woman in her late forties whom he'd married by now. "Can't let her waiting." He smiled, and exited.

Marty, in the meantime, focused on the display. "Something is inside there" he muttered to himself. "Something that is not right. And even if those alternate, smart versions of Emmett didn't find it, I am determined to do just that!"

* * * *

The work on the display took, as expected, a long time. A lunch arrived at six, with the arrival of Clara Parker, Marty's fiancée. They had a look together at the circuits, and at the sleeping visitors in the guest rooms of the mansion. Clara left again at seven-thirty, leaving the young scientist and his friend alone, and at ten-fifty, Emmett arrived to tell he was turning in, too. He gave the system a look.

"Did you find anything yet?"

Marty shook his head, yawning. "But I will find it" he said, determined. "I won't give up – there's no reason I should, since the others are still asleep and not up to leaving yet. I will find this thing. Don't worry – I've pulled an all-nighter before."

"I'm not worried about you" Emmett said, smirking. "I'm worried the machine is going to end total-loss by tomorrow morning."

Marty shot him a look. "Gimme a break, Emmett."

The horse dealer smirked, and headed off again, leaving Marty at the system. The moon rose up in the sky, and the turn of midnight arrived, with Marty still working. Finally, at two-thirty, he found the answer that the others had so long worked for to find. Over the next hour, he did various tests to confirm his insecure answer, and they were all right.

"It works" he whispered. "I found it!"

And then, a cry of happiness raced through JFK Drive.

* * * *

Doctor Emmett Brown, visiting version, yawned, as he opened his eyes. Where was he? The surroundings looked very unfamiliar to him.

As he looked around for just a few moments, he remembered. The dimensional hopping that had gone all too wrong and had sent Marty and himself to various different dimensions. He also remembered that now, they were stranded in a world which had Marty and his roles being reversed. Amazing.

The inventor then looked over at the clock, and gasped. It was 6:12 AM! Making sure he didn't look at a non-functioning clock, he checked it with his own watch – no, the time was six-twelve A.M. all right. Which meant that he had slept for over fifteen-and-a-half hours.

The sixty-five-year-old jumped up, and then first fully realized how he felt. Fresh. Energetic. More awake than he'd ever done in ages. Smiling, he looked at himself in the mirror, and noticed the signs of exhaustion were gone. Maybe it wasn't too bad that they had let him sleep for that long, after all.

He walked out of the room, only to face his other self, who let out a high-pitched scream and stepped back. "Whoa!" Emmett called out, startled. "This is heavy!"

If Doc had dismissed the events of yesterday as a dream, this would've proved it to him, along with the white hair that was neat instead of all through each other like Doc's. He smiled faintly. "Didn't expect me to be up yet?" he asked, some anger in his voice, though. Even though he had been very exhausted, his counterpart or the other Marty should've woken him up around three A.M. already. He didn't want to waste too much time at this.

"That's right" Emmett confirmed. "We expected you to sleep until seven at least, as you'd be woken at the sight of the risen sun through the curtains, which we purposely left closed in the night, hoping that you'd be able to sleep even longer than that."

"Well, I'm up now" Doc said. "And I'm freshly awake. Although I think you should've woken me up earlier. What about Marty, is he around and up yet?"

"Your Marty is, as far as I know, sound asleep" Emmett said. "Mine is a different case, though. He has been up the entire night, which more than I can say for myself, having woken up at five A.M. Marty has gone off to the local electronics store to get some tools you can take along on your trip, as we don't have enough time to devote on fixing the problem."

Doc blinked for a moment. "You mean, you know what the problem is?" he said, not really believing it.

Emmett nodded, however, confirming it. "Yes, we do" he said. "Marty does, at least – I still can't grasp it. He found it last night, at around two-thirty, but didn't really dare to believe in it until three-thirty. His yell of happiness could've woken up you along with the entire neighbourhood, but luckily it didn't."

"Unfortunately, I would say" Doc said. "So, at least there's one positive thing to add to the whole night – the problem is finally found."

"Really?"

Doc and Emmett turned around to see Visiting Marty standing in the doorway of his room, yawning. "I just woke up from you talking" he explained. "What's going on, Doc? Either of you?"

"The other Marty has apparently found the key to the problem we're dealing with" Doc said. "I'm kind of curious what it is, but I don't know yet, as he's currently to the electronics store and Emmett here doesn't even know how the DFSCUPCIF normally works, let alone what's wrong with it now."

"That's right" Emmett confirmed.

"Weird" Marty muttered. "This is such a strange world."

At that moment, the obvious noise of the truck both Marty's owned could be heard. The three in the house sped down, Emmett going last, as Doc was curious about the new idea of how to fix the machine, and Marty because he was curious about how his truck would look if it was owned by a time-travelling science fan like his other self was.

Local Marty opened the door just as Visiting Marty wanted to open it, causing the two to collide and drop to the floor. The local teen grinned. "Well, it's kind of obvious to see that you have left your period of unconsciousness behind yourself, now!"

"Yeah, right" the visitor muttered, looking eagerly behind his other self. "Um… what all did you manage to do to the truck a few years ago? It looks different."

And the truck did indeed look different. As it was now raining, Visiting Marty could see a windshield was covering the truck so it would remain dry. The visiting inventor figured that was to help the temporal displacement as the truck was one solid object with a solid surface. The teen in the meantime also noticed a Mr. Fusion on top, and a few objects on the back that were obviously from the future. Also, the truck was hovering half a feet above the ground, making clear that it could fly, like Doc's bus, DeLorean and train could, too. This was all the more evidence for Visiting Marty that his other self really was a scientist.

Local Marty smiled. "Oh, nothing really big" he said. "Nothing big from the outside, at least. Once you get to the inside, it's really changed. The entire dashboard has formed a temporal displacement system. Part of it is still being worked on, though, as I'm inserting a map system. In the meantime, I can just move it as an ordinary flying car – not that flying cars are normal in the 1980s, but they will be, eventually, as I don't doubt you have observed yourself on your trip to 2015 along with your girlfriend and your Emmett, whom you call Doc." He then remembered something, and opened the door. "There's somebody I'd like you to meet" he said, with a smug grin, as a brunette girl who resembled Jennifer stepped out. "Meet Clara Parker, my fiancée."

Visiting Marty gasped, stunned. She looked so much like his fiancée that the resemblance was unnerving, but he could obviously see an intelligent look in her face, and some shades in her hair that were lighter than his Jennifer's. "I'm Marty" he said, sticking out his hand. "Well, I suppose you already know… and know me. But I don't know you, so I'll just say 'Pleased to meet you'." He smiled apologetically.

"It's fine" Clara said, smiling. "I can understand how it feels to be put into such an uncertain situation. I had a hard time myself when I first arrived in 1985 and had to adapt to this era. Luckily, Marty and Emmett both helped me rather much."

Visiting Marty blinked. "You're not from the eighties?" he said. "You don't appear to be anything but an 80's girl…" Doc nodded in agreement. "I, too, didn't expect that" he said, frowning. "If you're not from 1988, where _are _you from?"

"Clara turned to her fiancée, smiling a bit scolding. "You didn't tell them, honey?" she said. "I figured you would've, considering how you love telling the tale… an adapted version of it set in the 1980s, at least…to everyone who wants to hear it, or not. Your parents even say you've told it them a dozen times and they almost know every sentence out of their head by now."

Local Marty chuckled. "It's natural for someone to love telling the tale of how he or she met his or her partner who he or she is romantically infuated with. And I forgot to tell because my other self fell asleep as soon as I had finished the tale of my first trip to 1955. But, anyway, I'll tell you. Clara here lived originally in 1885. She was supposed to die from going over the edge of a cliff. In the previous timeline, that cliff was called Parker Cliff."

Marty gasped. "That sounds very familiar" he said. "Doc's wife, Clara Clayton, went over a cliff too, into a ravine. That ravine was later called Clayton Ravine – and it still would've, hadn't we saved her life. It's now called Eastwood Ravine, because I raced up to 88 to get out of 1885 and the train that pushed me up fell into the ravine, and I had taken the alias of Clint Eastwood… let's just say it's a long story."

Local Marty smiled. "Yeah, I can understand that." His smile then changed into a frown. "Wait a moment… Clayton Ravine? We still have that outside of town! Parker Cliff is in fact a huge cliff that towers over the ravine. I went by the alias of Albert Einstein when I was in that year, so the cliff is now called Einstein Cliff. I was supposed to fall into it when being shot off with a catapult that would help me pick up speed up to eighty-eight when dropping… let's just say that this, too, is a long story."

Doc Brown then looked at Local Marty, and pointed towards the bus. "What did you do?" he asked. "My counterpart told me that you figured out the source of our problem last night."

Local Marty nodded, pointing to a bag that was still inside the truck. "Tools that should be able to help you fix it are in there" he said. "There's just present-day tools, though, so for the actual replacement, you should go to the future, as the DFSCUPCIF obviously won't be fixed otherwise without taking away the casing, opening it, and replacing almost all of the parts, which no doubt would take a month to fix, if not more. Even for me it would be two weeks at the very least."

Doc sighed. "Well, I guess we'll keep on hopping, then" he said. "But, what I wanted to ask you… what was the source? It can't be too obvious, or we would have found it much earlier. Also, all of the screens said that things were all right. I'm kind of confused what happened, to be honest."

"Oh, I would be, too" Local Marty said. "But everything will clear up to you in just a few minutes, and then you'll call yourself stupid that you didn't think of that earlier… and promise me, don't hit yourself because of what you assume was dumbness because you didn't figure out what I did, after half a day of devoted puzzling."

"I won't" Doc said, following the teenager towards the bus. "But I can't help but feel silly already, since you did find it and I didn't. I can't help but think of you as the musician who doesn't understand my talking about technical things in the slightest, and seeing you different from that is a whole new experience."

Local Marty nodded. "I understand" he said. "For me it's the same, but then in reverse, of course – I'm thinking of you as Emmett, who doesn't have the same brightness as you do. While my IQ is higher than yours, you're still a lot smarter than he is. I wonder how that happened…"

"Trust me, um, Smart Marty, I'm thinking exactly the same" Doc said, sighing. "Well, I'm guessing that we'll never find that out, so it's better to focus on the present."

They had arrived in the bus, where Emmett volunteered to stay out and keep guard to see if nobody was coming, as a flying, futuristic bus wasn't what everyone in 1988 would expect, no matter how scientific Local Marty was. Visiting Marty agreed to come in, though, to the surprise of Doc, who had expected him to stay out. When asked about it, his friend had shrugged and said: "This is supposed to help us go home, so I wanna be around right away. Also, I'm kind of curious to see what caused us to hop so much times… as long as my counterpart can keep it in English." Doc could understood that, and with that, the matter was closed.

As both Marty's and Doc had entered, Local Marty stepped over to the controls. "Time circuits on" he ordered. "Display DFSCUPCIF functions."

There was a slight beep, and then the circuits turned on, and a computerized voice said: "Good morning, Mr. McFly. Your authorization to access these functions last for another 17 minutes and 45 seconds as of present." An image of the DFSCUPCIF's cross section then appeared on the screen, all glowing green as reported working.

Marty looked proud at Doc, who frowned. "I don't get the change" he said. "Everything is still reported working fine, but you said we still have to fix the problem?"

Local Marty smiled. "Oh, watch this" he said. He then zoomed in on a particular section of the DFSCUPCIF, and pointed at the screen. "Tell me what that is."

"The fusion controller" Doc said, a bit perplexed. "I don't see the problem – it appears to be working fine, and it should! I already made it in 1985, or in fact, in 2015, put it in the DeLorean, salvaged it from the wreckage, and later, I put it in the bus. What's wrong with it?"

"It's three years plus seventy years in the mine is seventy-three years old" Visiting Marty now realized. "Wait a sec… I think my other self means that it's so old, so it might not be working too well anymore!"

"That's right" Local Marty said. "Pressure on the DFSCUPCIF caused the middle part to break, and there are smallish glitches, so the Fusion energy was not controlled. When you brought in a load of energy, it overloaded easily. 4.84 gigawatt's were let through into the operating system instead of 2.42. Luckily the main capacitor only needed 2.42 to function and _could_ not absorb those other gigawatt's. So, it found the nearest connection, which led straight towards the Destination Dimension control and destroyed it, leaving no glitch of the wires complete. Therefore, the destinations could no longer be controlled and you started hopping randomly throughout the space-time continuums. Also, the only messages that were given were 'all right' from the Present and Last Departed functions, so that's why you got a green." He turned to the controls. "Display messages of past transitions, starting on the first trip leaving the home universe."

Doc looked on, astonished, as the display revealed it's information. The first transition was completely fine and had gone without a glitch, or so the Destination Dimension controls had reported. The second, that brought the time machine to the universe in which Marty had been trapped in the 1950s permanently, was also fine. The third, however, was no longer there, and why the futuristic computer hadn't sensed that as 'wrong', Doc didn't get, but it hadn't, and all of the message boxes after that had been empty, and recorded as the usual 'no news is good news' thing. Once home, Doc vowed to himself, he was going to have a serious look at this stupid thing.

He then looked at Local Marty, and smiled faintly. "I knew something was going on" he muttered. "So this was it, all the time. An error in the Fusion control caused the Destination Dimension control to completely break down… well, I guess that, upon reloading, we have to be really careful to do no more than the 2.42, or more displays might be damaged." He groaned. "I wish I had something to make sure that there is no more trash than necessary… but even this computer can't record the readings that precise."

Local Marty grinned. "I might have exactly what you are looking for" he said, disappearing into the house. Soon, he came back, carrying a box. "This box is suited to include no more trash than 2.42 gigawatt's" he said. "I got the information for it from 2045. It's kind of weird-looking, I know, but this is what you need, I presume, so I suppose it doesn't matter that much if it's stupid-looking. Anyway, with this box on you when you go looking for trash, things should be all right." He looked up at the bus. "Too bad that you are leaving soon, though. It's fascinating, having someone who looks like me but is not matched in intelligence, as well as someone who looks like a person I know that is in intelligence my inferior, but is brighter in another reality."

"Yeah, that's right" Doc said, nodding enthusiastically. "It's strange to see you as brighter than myself. Not that Marty was not intelligent, he's been brighter than I expect and that he admits sometimes, but still, I wouldn't have expected him to do the things I've seen you do. It's fascinating." He looked at the clock, which reported the time as six-thirty-six A.M., and then at the bus. "We don't have to leave right away, though. We can hang around a bit."

"Doc!" Visiting Marty protested.

"Aren't you hungry?" the visiting scientist argued. "If I'm allowed, I'd like to join you for breakfast… we can pay you, of course, but anyhow, I'd like to be prepared once I go on one more journey through interdimensional space, which has become all but unavoidable now. It's too bad, though, that we no longer have the hope that this problem will fix itself on it's own. If it's really sending us to random dimensions, well, then we can be stuck hopping through dimensions for days."

"Weeks" Visiting Marty said, pessimistic.

"Months" Local Marty agreed.

"Years" Emmett, who peeked inside, said, not really knowing what it was all about but at least getting the gist of it.

"I'd say 'centuries' but that is getting way too depressing in my book" Doc said. "Anyway, we should be able to find a dimension with a version of me… or you, of course… that is able to help us sooner than we can find home, and if we land up in a dimension like that, the local could help us get home, which is more than we could do when hanging around here. I think that, once breakfast is served, and if Emmett would like to introduce his wife or whatever he has to us, maybe my Marty and I could leave around nine-thirty?"

"Sounds like a deal" Emmett agreed. "I have to call my wife, first, though. She's currently visiting some relatives in Sacramento, and should come home around ten after shopping first. I'll tell her to take an earlier bus – shopping can always be done later, but alternative visitors, well, we don't have them every day, even with a science nut like my Marty around to conduct experiments which blow up the entire garage, if it stays to that." He smiled at Doc. "I'm kind of glad my mansion hasn't burned down yet, like yours has. That would've definitely been a possibility, with Marty's chemical potions around in the basement… I'm glad I encouraged him to mostly experiment in the garage lab. If fire breaks out there, at least then the damage would be limited."

"That's right" Doc nodded. He then frowned. "Do you have a wife? I suppose you didn't meet her in 1885, then, if Marty was the one to meet his future spouse there…" He winced, uncomfortable at, after seeing Julia, meeting yet another woman he might have met but never did. Granted, most of the wives he'd seen had been Clara's so far, but things might change from that pattern later. And seeing at how different he was here, what kind of woman would his local spouse be? He hoped that she'd be nice, at least.

Emmett nodded. "That's right" he said. "My wife is Jennifer Suzy Clayton, born June eleventh, 1933. I met her in 1962, and we married soon afterwards. It did take a while for us to get kids, though – Emmett Junior wasn't born until 1967, and it took 'till 1970 for Clara to come around. In 1972, we finally had our third child, whom I named Martin George Brown, after Marty and his Dad, y'know."

Doc smiled amused. "I have a son named Martin too" he told his other self. "His name is Martin Socrates Brown, though, born November twelfth, 1986… he's our third child, too. We only have boys, though. I wonder if the fact that you had the abilities of getting a female descendant means that I do, too?"

"Um, yeah, I suppose" Emmett muttered.

Local Marty coughed, getting the attention of the two versions of Emmett Brown, so similar yet so different. "Shall we head into the mansion, now?" he suggested. "It's about time, I suppose, for us to seat and prepare the morning eatable products?"

"Breakfast" Doc translated to Visiting Marty. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Then Emmett can call his wife. I'm very curious about what kind of spouse he could have… I hope she's nice, at least."

"She's wonderful" Emmett assured his other self. "Trust me, everything will be fine. Jennifer will be excited at the idea of meeting another version of me, and even the fact that you and her other self aren't dating won't ruin the fun she'll have with it. In fact, she'll probably slap me for not telling her earlier… but, well, I didn't really want to ruin her entire trip. Then again – Sacramento can be redone, but I have no idea when, or if, you'll ever come back."

"I would like to come back, I think" Visiting Marty said, softly.

Doc gasped. "Marty, what happened?" he asked, jokingly. "Did you get possessed by a ghost or something while you were asleep? Where's the real Marty, who wants to go home at all costs? Did you kidnap him?"

Everyone chuckled, even Marty himself, knowing that the comment wasn't meant seriously. "I'm still the same person, Doc" he assured his friend. "But after having a long rest, I think I'm beginning to see your point. It is rather cool to visit other dimensions, and I think I'd like to come back here… as long as you will assure me that the dimensional circuits won't break down on us again."

"Promise" Doc said, smiling. "I know that you want to go home, and even I am beginning to get sick of hopping around – that's why we needed our rest. So, if – no, _when_ we get home, we'll definitely try this again – once I have fixed that machine for once and for all!"

That was met with a lot of agreement from the others. "But first, we'll have breakfast" Emmett reminded him. "No man can work on an empty stomach, after all, even though I've seen Marty try to do so more than once… and I think that you, uh, Doc, have tried that too."

Doc blushed, nodding, as they all walked into the house. "Yes" he said. "I have. But right now, it's not important. We've got to go home – we've all got missions to accomplish."

And of that, nobody disagreed with.

oooooooo

It took some time for Local Marty and Doc together to make breakfast ready without blowing up the entire kitchen, and in the meantime, Emmett showed Visiting Marty around the farm. The teenager was fascinated at the profession that the other version of his best friend practiced, and looked around with awe. Finally, they headed back into the house, at seven-fifteen, where Marty and Doc had just finished making breakfast. The four of them ate, and around eight-thirty, when Local Marty had just finished the tale of how he had been trapped in 1885, when Jennifer Clayton arrived, and Doc got his first true look at his other self's wife.

The first thought he had was that he was looking at Clara, and indeed, the woman his other self had married looked a lot like the inventor's spouse. But there were differences that were noticed right away, in hair colour, and her face looked less intelligent than Clara's did. Overall, though, she looked a lot like Clara, and Doc sighed with relief at the fact that the Clayton blood line hadn't been that disturbed after all, and that his other self, too, had good choice in women. He stood up, faced Jennifer Clayton, and extended his hand, introducing himself with a "I suppose you already know who I am, one way or another."

Jennifer chuckled. "Yes, I do" she said. "Doctor Emmett Lathrop Brown, I suppose?" She giggled. "Boy, it sounds strange to call you a Doctor!"

Doc agreed, laughing as well. "Yes, I can imagine it does" he said. "After all, you are used to me being a horse breeder, not a doctor in science. But I can assure you, I really am a doctor. I've got the PhD to prove it and the certificate is stuck in my wallet. And if that doesn't prove it to you, the bus would, I think."

Jennifer nodded. "Yes, it certainly stuns me" she said. "I can't believe this is actually happening. Some part of me thinks that I am just having a very weird dream, but I can't imagine that I would dream this, either. It's just too strange. So, I'll have to think that this is for real after all." She sighed. "If Marty revealing time travel was true to us wasn't strange enough…"

"When did that happen, anyway?" Doc asked, interested. "I'm sure that it would've taken Marty quite some time to convince you if you weren't at the initial experiment. Then still… he hasn't really told me much yet, just the fact that Emmett – your husband was shot to death at the experiment, and about his travels to 1955, and back to the present. I think there's a lot left to tell."

Local Marty blushed. "That might be true" he said. "But let's get inside, first, shall we? There's a lot of things that we have yet to discuss. Especially if you want to keep your departure time at nine-thirty."

"Yes, preferably so" Doc nodded. "I know that you would like us to hang around longer, and in all honesty – so do I. But Marty is getting anxious to go, and I am the same myself. I don't want to waste endless amounts of time in here just talking to you about various things. We want to get home, preferably sooner than later." He checked his watch. "We are already supposed to be on the morning of April fourth, instead of April third, after all. We're currently exactly twenty-four hours ahead of you."

"Freaky" Jennifer muttered. "Although I think Emmett and Marty are somewhat ahead of when they should be, too. Man, this is so confusing!"

"Tell me about it" Visiting Marty commented. "When I listen to Doc, half of it goes over my head as I fail to be able to grasp it."

"Same here" Emmett agreed. "With Marty, then. He can go off into endless debates about the simplest things, but explaining them in a complicated matter in amazing speed. I can't believe his voice can actually keep track of all those words that he rattles off."

Both Doc and Local Marty blushed. "Um… let's go in, now?" Doc finally suggested.

Visiting Marty and Emmett both laughed. "Yes, let's do that" Emmett said. "We've got some more things to discuss with you."

oooooooo

The conversation inside was soon getting interesting, and it was already nine-thirty-five A.M. when the time travellers finally left the building. Doc filled up the Mr. Fusion, taking care not to put in any more than 2.42 gigawatt's, and, waved after by the locals, the bus lifted up from the ground, and flew through the skies of Hill Valley away from the mansion that the less intelligent version of Emmett resided in.

"I still can't believe how I'm so smart here" Marty said, shaking his head. "I mean – I always saw you as the scientist, not myself. It's been twenty-one hours since we first arrived here, but still, I see your counterpart as the inventor and constantly have to correct myself, even though the other me is the one wearing lab clothes and getting crazy looks in his face most of the time."

"…Marty!"

"It wasn't meant as an insult, Doc!"

The scientist laughed. "I suppose so" he quipped, then turning serious and turning to the controls. "Input destination time: April 2, 1988, at 12:40 PM."

"You're still keeping the same date?" Marty asked.

"Can't rule out the possibility that we might end up home" Doc said. "This way, we'll travel forty-five hours into our own pasts. Farther than we've ever done before, but that's logical as more time elapses."

"Yeah, I guess so" Marty muttered. He cast one last glance downwards, at the other versions of himself and his best friend, and then leaned back as the time bus picked up more and more speed, rapidly accelerating. Doc focused on all the controls as the bus hit fifty… sixty… seventy…eighty…eighty-five…

The moment that the bus hit eighty-eight, Marty felt a weird feeling of uncertainty go through him. They might know the solution to the problem now, or at least, Doc did, with help of Science Marty, but still, they weren't home. They needed to somehow find a way to return to the dimension where they really belonged.

The teenager then sighed, as the time machine broke through the temporal barrier. Whatever was lying ahead of them, he'd certainly find out soon.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** Yes, here I am again, uploading a chapter for this story after who knows how long. Anyway, this is the so-called Plutonium World Chapter, and after reading this, I suppose you'll know what that means, even though it might remain unknown to you up until you've read a third of the chapter. Anyway, have fun reading this.

**Disclaimer: If I'm not mistaken, I don't own BTTF. I could be wrong, though, but I don't think the Bob's sold it to me. **

**Chapter ****Nine**

Saturday, April 2, 1988

12:40 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

Marty McFly felt uncertain, as the bus once again moved into a new universe. He really had been at this for a long time. He wondered just what the new universe would bring.

The teenager tried to count for himself what all they had gone through. There had certainly been many universes. First of all, there had been the world in which Marty's future son had been trapped in the 1980s, and had not been able to make it home again up until a week from now. Then, there was the world in which Marty himself had been stuck in the 1950s. Then, there had been the brief visit to the world in which Doc's house was not built, in which they didn't stay long enough to get details on their own personal situation. Then, there was the world in which Doc had not moved back to the future once getting trapped in the past. Also, there had been the world in which Marty had kept the sports almanac but raced Needles. Next was the world where that original trip to 1885 had never happened but everything else was pretty much the same. Also, there was the universe in which Doc had never met Marty. There was the twisted version of the Biff-horrific reality. Finally, there had been the universe in which Marty himself was the inventor and Doc pretty much filled in the assistant role. However his counterpart and Doc's other self were perfectly nice in that world, Marty had felt very much uncomfortable there. The only kind of world in which that could've been worse would've been a world in which Marty himself was a girl, however the teen doubted that such a world would exist, even on these mad hops through inter-dimensional space. However, considering the craziness that they had seen so far, it might very well be possible. Nothing was impossible, after all.

The teenager looked over to his friend, who was also leaning back as the familiar sensation from dimensional travel, which had been so foreign when they had started this trip, so long ago, started to fade and they were set into the new reality. "Hey, Doc?" the teen asked. "Where are we this time?"

To respond, the scientist looked outside – and gasped. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed. "Marty, take a look down there!"

Confused, the teen looked out of the window – and then, he saw it too himself. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed, his eyes focused on the window. "Where are we – did we just land in the middle of a _fairy tale_?"

As Marty looked outside, it certainly seemed to be that way. While the road was pretty much normal and familiar, the persons on it weren't. There was no single car in sight, but human beings, some pulling a wagon with some stuff on it, and some just running around, were running over the roads. Their speeds were incredibly high, mostly above fifty or even sixty miles an hour. Marty's jaw dropped even more as he noticed that they were glowing up in various colours – some yellow, some blue, some green, and some red. All ran in various directions across the roads, with Marty and Doc gawking at the scene from out of the time bus.

"It very much looks like it" Doc finally managed to bring out. "That we landed in a fairy tale, I mean. This… this is incredible. I've never seen this before. Apparently, we're in some kind of a supernatural world…even _I_ can't imagine a scientific rational explanation for this to exist. It's just too… strange."

"Yeah" Marty said. "At least time travel made somewhat sense. This doesn't, at all." He looked at his friend. "So, what'll we do now? Leave again?"

Doc thought about that for a moment, then shook his head. "No" he said. "If there is a scientific explanation for this, after all, then we might be in a farther advanced world than we are familiar with. In such a world, there might be technology with which to fix the time machine. If there is no scientific explanation, well, then we'll at least have had a good look at a world, which we most likely will never encounter again. This world certainly seems to be very unique."

"Very much, yeah" Marty said. "I don't think that I've ever seen something like this before – not even in comic books, or other works of fiction. And you're right – I _am_ kind of curious." He glanced down the street. "So, where do we try to land? Close to your lab – if it exists in this kind of world?"

"Well," Doc said, trying to think about what they had seen as rational as he could, "it seems to be that we currently are at a road with a lot of traffic. I assume that the most likely reason that no one has spotted us just yet, is that we're high up in the sky, and it would be dangerous, and most likely useless, for one to look up. Also, our engine doesn't make that much noise – as it's been worked on in the Twenty-First Century, in the so-called Fusion era. It is very uncommon to have a noisy engine in the future."

"Another reason for me to wish that I'd live in 2018 and not 1988" Marty said, with a smirk. "Well, fusion wouldn't be invented just yet – but I suppose that you get the idea. Whenever I wanted to visit Jennifer or someone else, and it had to be secretly at nighttimes, I'd have to sneak out and take my skateboard – as my truck would be too noisy." He frowned. "Granted, in the original timeline, I didn't even have that issue to deal with – as I didn't have a truck at all. Also, in that world, I sneaked out far less often, as, seeing that I had a mother who was a lot stricter, I knew that, if I got caught sneaking out, or returning home, then I'd be punished far heavier, than in the new timeline." He scratched the back of his head. "Man, this really is still confusing, after three years. I might've kind of adjusted to it, but I don't think that it'll ever become really normal, to remember two kinds of pasts."

"No, I suppose not" Doc said. "I kind of have those issues as well. Granted, I've never changed my family life – but I can clearly remember a youth with Clayton _and _Eastwood Ravine, and I can remember not seeing you ever again after November twelfth, 1955, 10:04 PM, up until the day we met in 1975, but I can also remember seeing you again and having to send you back to the Old West because you had concluded from evidence in the library of Hill Valley that you had to go back." He looked at Marty, smirking. "And then there's the timeline that _you_ remember, additionally, in which I got shot to death by Mad Dog Tannen, in which you and I found my tombstone at Boot Hill Cemetery. I'm just glad that I don't remember that. Seeing clear evidence of my own death must've really freaked me out, to speak with your kind of words."

"Oh, it certainly did" Marty said, smirking as he thought back of that day. "You were really stunned and horrified at the same time. And to think that you'd just talked about looking yourself up and why you couldn't… well, it had become necessary, now, whether you'd like it or not."

"Yes, I suppose it had" Doc said, with a sigh. "I'm glad that's erased, though – I'd hate to know the smallest things about my future. Well, even if I'd known, it's all in the past." He smiled for a second, then looked out of the window. "Well, it looks like we're nearing JFK Drive – if it's even called that in this weird reality. I believe it was Tannen Drive in the Hell Valley world."

"Yeah, it might've changed it's name" Marty said. "I can't really see all of this as a reason for president Kennedy not existing, though, but it is possible, I suppose."

"Anything is possible" Doc agreed. He soon had to change his speculations, though, as when he looked out of the window, he could clearly identify the sign still reading 'John F Kennedy Drive'. "But it's not in this world" he concluded. "Things are still the same here."

"Do you think your mansion still stands?" Marty asked. "It did in the last world."

Doc shook his head, chuckling a little. "Marty, no matter how awkward you might have been upon meeting your smarter self, you don't have to automatically associate this world with that one just because for you, they're both strange. I can understand your nervous feelings, but I happen to think that this is weirder than the previous world in many ways! And remember, _I_ should be the one feeling uncomfortable. After all, it was me who was, well, let's just say… not too smart. He wasn't stupid, but he didn't have my IQ... or even yours, for that matter."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right" Marty said. "I can't help but feel awkward, though. Seeing me being that smart is weird. And even you couldn't really understand the language he spoke in sometimes. I mean, I understood 'temporal field warping and displacement machine' just a little, but some of the other things he said… well, I couldn't even pronounce them, so it was almost impossible for me to understand them. There's no way that I could've ever pictured myself as being like him before today, but I guess it's possible. It does freak me out, though."

"More than this world?" Doc said, smiling. "After all, this is not too common of a universe either. Great Scott, I still can't imagine this. You'd expect that after all these universes, I'd be used to all these strange things, but I guess I am not. Not just yet, at least. I wonder whether my other self can explain more about this."

"We'll hear that in a few moments, Doc" Marty said, pointing ahead. "That's your other self's house, and it looks like he's at home."

As Doc looked, he could confirm that, indeed, his counterpart's house still stood, and didn't seem to be in bad condition like it was in the world where his counterpart had never moved back to the present until 2045. For a moment, he wondered whether he might've returned to the world where his other self was married to Susan Clayton and Marty had taken the sports almanac. As he thought that, he immediately abandoned that thought, though. After all, that world hadn't included the human-powered moving thing. No, this would be an entirely different world once more.

He turned to Marty, remembering what his friend had just said, and shook his head. "That's not too certain, Marty" he said. "After all, we don't know whether he's home. He might be out of the place for a while. Going for a drive somewhere… um, a walk, I mean." He shook his head. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn't have believed this world. It's so scientifically impossible."

"Yeah, I think it's weird, too" Marty said. "Guess like these other us-es have quite a story to tell, if they really are what we think they are – the ones that really caused this whole mess. Although, with no fuel problems or other things like that, I doubt you could really call it a 'mess' if it's positive."

"Correct" Doc said. "Still, it's very unusual from our point of view." With that, he landed the bus on the ground in front of his other self's garage, and exited, Marty following. He locked the doors as tight as usual – in this world, the bus could attract even more attention if the locals didn't know what a vehicle was – and started to walk up to the garage door. As he arrived, he paused to look at Marty, who just caught up to him.

"What's the matter?" Marty asked.

"I was just wondering whose turn it should be to knock on the door" Doc said. "Let's see… you did that in the world where Marty Junior lived in the 1980s, and in the world where you were trapped in the 1950s. Then, I was the one to approach the version of me who wasn't settled in the 1980s, and it was my turn again with the me from the world where you had the almanac. Then, I was also there for the world where you never went back to 1955 and altered your parents' history. You were the one to approach the version of me who had never met you as you had never been born. In the Biff-world there wasn't any version of me so that doesn't count. Finally, I was there as well in the world where we just came from. So, the conclusion is that I think that it should be your turn again."

"That's all right with me" Marty said, shrugging. "I just hope that you don't look radically different, though. I mean, that could happen, in such a world – and that might cause _me_ to faint, instead of him."

Doc smirked. "Well, I guess that if I was the one to approach him, we'd _both _faint, so this is better" he said. "And besides – don't take conclusions until there is enough evidence to do so. For this, there is almost none. If you put your mind to it… well, you know what happens then."

Marty rolled his eyes at his friend's over-use of that phrase, then took a deep breath as Doc hurried away. Trying to focus, the teenager moved over to the door, and rang the door bell.

Moments later, the local Doc arrived at the door. Marty's first reaction was a sigh of relief – he didn't look all too different from the Doc Brown that he knew. Next, though, Emmett frowned. "Marty?" he asked. "Weren't you just with me in the lab area a few minutes ago?"

Marty winced. "Um, that's a confusing situation, Doc" he said, nervously. "I was thirsty, so I had to go and pick up some… um, some Pepsi's."

Emmett frowned. "Some _what_?"

"Pepsi's" Marty repeated, stunned. "You know – drinks?"

Emmett shook his head. "Never heard of that version before" he said. "How much water is in it?"

Marty frowned. "Water? Why would there be water in it?" Then again, maybe there was water in Pepsi's, but he didn't really know too much about the ingredients of drinks, not even about his favourite.

"Because that's always the case?" Emmett replied, looking at the teenager as if he thought Marty was going insane. "How else could you drink it! I mean…"

Emmett's baffled feelings were interrupted as a familiar looking young man appeared in the doorway. "Hey, Doc, what's taking you so long?" he asked. "I thought we'd…"

His sentence was cut short as he noticed his counterpart. Local Marty's face went white, and for a moment, Visiting Marty – who didn't notice any of those feelings with himself aside from a very faint dizzy feeling that passed after a few seconds – thought his other self was going to faint. That, however, didn't happen. An equally stunned Emmett came to his senses just in time and got a tight grip on Local Marty's hand. "Marty!" he exclaimed. "Don't you _dare _to faint now!"

Local Marty returned to life. "Well, I think I've got a decent reason" he joked. The teen looked at his other self and shook his head. "What is he – I – doing here?"

"I don't know!" Emmett exclaimed. "I thought he was you! Granted, he said a lot of weird things…" He paused, and looked at Visiting Marty with a frown. "You haven't changed time, have you? Or are you from the future?"

Visiting Marty shook his head. "It's a bit of a complicated story" he muttered. "I think that Doc could tell you better than I can."

Emmett's eyes widened. "You mean… I'm with you?" he stammered, holding on to the wall for support.

Visiting Marty smirked. "You definitely are" he said. "Doc! You can come over here now!"

As Doc came out of his hiding spot and walked towards the front door, Emmett was torn between fainting and staying on his feet. He finally chose the latter, however his face remained rather pale. "Great Scott" he whispered, softly. "You're me!"

Doc and Visiting Marty exchanged glances at the familiar phrase. "It's a complicated story, but for now, it'll suffice if I tell you that no, I'm not" Doc said. "Well, I am, but not from your world."

"Not from our world?" Emmett repeated. "You don't mean you're an extra-terrestrial individual, do you?"

"No, I don't" Doc said. "It's a completely different situation all together, but I'll tell you once we get seated."

Emmett nodded. "All right" he said. "Follow me."

Doc and Visiting Marty walked after the other inventor into the garage, and Marty figured that it looked pretty much similar to how he remembered it. There was the kitchen, there was Doc's bed, there was the amplifier – to his amusement, Marty noticed that it was a new one. _Guess I blew it up here too…_

As Emmett gestured for them to get seated, both Doc and Marty took a good look at their newest host. Emmett didn't look all too different from Doc, as he had concluded before, but he did look slightly older. Hardly noticeable, but it was true. The teen wondered why that was. Could it be from a lack of rejuvenation? No… then Emmett wouldn't have been so energetic. Granted, Doc had been that way even before getting his rejuve, but after a few days, Marty had noticed some changes, and those were obvious here, too. Still, Emmett looked a slight bit older, and Marty wondered how that came to be.

As he moved his head to study his other self in the same way, Emmett spoke up. "So, as I was wondering before, what are you doing here?"

"We're having a problem with my time machine" Doc said. "I'm not sure if you ever built one, since our worlds seem to be vastly different, but if you have not, I can assure you that they do exist, and I am in possession of one."

"You don't have to worry about that" Emmett replied. "I did build a time travelling device, although to call it a 'machine' sounds a little odd to me. But go on – what is the problem you're having?"

"Well, as I said, it's a long story" Doc said. "In short, it's like this – today, Marty and I went to test the bus…"

"…the what?" Emmett replied, frowning.

"The bus" Doc responded. "I can understand you don't recognise the term, as apparently, in your world, vehicles don't exist at all from what we've observed. In our world, vehicles are constructions with round wheels underneath which are powered by a motorized engine."

Emmett shook his head, astonished. "Sounds rather intriguing" he said. "We do have those things – well, without the motorized engine part, I have no idea what that is – but we rarely use them, as powered running goes faster." He paused, causing Marty to wonder what powered running was – even though he did have some kind of a suspicion. "Anyway, go on with your story. We'll discuss that difference later."

"Right, we will" Doc said, nodding. "As I was saying, we went to test the bus, which is our time machine." Emmett raised an eyebrow at that, and Local Marty was torn between acceptance and disbelief as well. "I had built in a device that would enable us to travel through dimensions, and it worked, as we had two successful trips. However, as we planned to go back home, something malfunctioned within the DFSCUPCIF – the dimensional analogue of the flux capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible – and we were stuck hopping through dimensions. Finally, it was the previous dimension, which inhabited a Marty and me whose intelligence levels were switched around, where _Marty_ was the one to find the problem."

Emmett had been looking at his counterpart with some scepticism, but his eyes went really wide at the last part – not that the visitors could really blame him, of course. "Excuse me?" he said. "Did you just say _Marty _found the solution to your problem? Are we really talking about the same Marty McFly here?"

"Hey!" Local Marty half-chuckled, even though he looked quite pale himself.

"I'm not quite sure" Doc responded, nodding. "But, yes, I can understand your confusion. It is true, though – Marty managed to find the problem within the DFSCUPCIF, and however he was not able to fix it, he gave us some sufficient help. I hope that you could maybe help us to find out how we could fix it. That would probably take some time, so we would understand it if you didn't want to help us."

"I'd love to" Emmett said, giving his counterpart a supporting smile. "However, I'm not sure whether I would have the ability to do so. Especially since your time machine is built into a vehicle."

"Which, to me, brings up the question where your time machine, um, device is built into" Doc said, obviously getting to be interested in the subject. "Let me guess… is it a refrigerator, perhaps? Like in the Teens In Time trilogy?"

"The _what_ trilogy?"

"Never mind" Doc said, shrugging it off. "So, anyway, would you mind showing us your time travelling device? Not to put any pressure on you, but seeing as we told our story and told you about our world, I think it's only fair if you do the same about yours."

Emmett thought about that for a moment, then shrugged. "I guess you're right" he said. "Wait here – I've got it stored in the closet somewhere…"

"It's _that _small?" Doc muttered to no one in particular as Emmett walked off to get whatever made time travel possible in this world. "Great Scott…"

"Yeah, it's pretty small" Local Marty agreed. "I was kind of surprised, too, when he first showed it to me."

"Let me guess" Visiting Marty said, with a smirk. "Did that happen at the Lone Pine or Twin Pines Mall parking lot?"

"Um, no" Local Marty replied, obviously confused. "Back here at Emmett's house – in the backyard, to be specific. What's a 'parking lot', anyway?"

That question was delayed as Emmett returned with a rucksack of some sorts, with a clearly fluxing flux capacitor attached to it. However, the whole rucksack looked as if it was one unified time travelling device with the flux capacitor, as the normal flux capacitor was with the DeLorean. Doc and Visiting Marty looked awkwardly at it. Finally, it was Doc who spoke. "It is _very_ strange to see this" he whispered. "How does it work?"

"Good question" Emmett said. "Look, it's actually very simple. There's this keypad right here, which enables you to set your destination." He pointed at a keypad on the side of the bag, which kind of resembled the one in the time machines Doc had but was much smaller. "You just tap in the destination here and it will appear on the display."

"It's the same way with my time machine" Doc commented. "Well, the display and the keypad are smaller, but the basic principle is the same."

"Interesting" Emmett replied. "Anyway, I don't think that what follows next is going to be exactly similar. We fuel the time machine inside the bag." He turned to Local Marty. "Marty, could you hand me a bottle of plutonium?"

For a few moments, Doc and Visiting Marty just stood there, astonished. "You mean, you still use plutonium in your time machine?" Visiting Marty finally said.

"Yes, I do" Emmett said, as Local Marty headed over to the _refrigerator, _which was clearly filled with just bottles of plutonium! The teen picked out a large sized bottle and a smaller one, and headed over to the local inventor, handing him the larger bottle. "Here you go, Doc" he said.

"Thank you, Marty" Emmett said, smiling. He then simply put the plutonium bottle in the bag. "As you can see, the plutonium can be kept in the can, which will break upon time travel and can be done in the garbage bag. Further, the time travel is triggered by…"

The local suddenly stopped, as he noticed that his listeners didn't even listen to him anymore. Instead, both were staring dumbfounded in the direction of Local Marty – who had opened the second bottle of plutonium, taken out the plutonium stick and had just took a bite from it. "All right, what's the matter?" Emmett finally asked.

"He's _eating_ the plutonium!" Doc finally managed to bring out, stunned. "Great Scott…"

Emmett looked at his friend, then nodded. "You're right" he said. "Marty, put that thing down. It's one-fifteen P.M., you've had lunch just three quarter ago. There's no need to take a snack now."

"That's not what I meant" Doc said, somehow managing a faint smile. "I meant that in our world, no one eats plutonium. In fact, plutonium is radio-active, and could kill us if we stand close to it for too long."

Emmett's eyes went wide. Local Marty dropped his plutonium stick, which fell on the floor. Visiting Marty smirked. "Pretty heavy, huh?" he couldn't help but quip.

"Not _that _heavy" his local counterpart quipped back, as both teens burst into laughter. "I'd better stick this one back into the bottle" Local Marty continued. "Wouldn't want you to get in danger because of it."

"We weren't exposed for too long" Doc assured him, as Local Marty put the half-eaten stick back on it's place, swallowing the plutonium that was still in his mouth as he did so. "We should be fine. And for all we know, the plutonium that you've got might be a different substance as the plutonium that we are familiar to." He whistled. "This is pretty fascinating, you know. I don't believe we've seen anything that odd thus far."

"Well, I wouldn't be so sure" Visiting Marty said, smiling faintly.

"Don't you dare to mention the last universe again" Doc said. "I know you're just joking, but your continuing mentions of that universe are beginning to get annoying."

"Sorry, Doc" Visiting Marty apologized. "Won't do that again."

"Oh yeah, that world where Marty helped you fix the time machine" Emmett remembered. "Yes, I can understand if that is fairly awkward." He paused. "Speaking of awkwardness, have you noticed any other changes besides the plutonium and vehicle issues, which are rather obvious by now?"

"Not yet" Doc said. "We could attempt to discuss that later, but for now, I'd like you to continue with your explanation about the time bag, or whatever you call it."

"Mostly we call it just the 'time device', but time bag is okay with me" Emmett responded. "Anyway, with the Destination Time in place and the plutonium as fuel, the only problem left is getting up to 88 miles per hour. For that, we simply use powered running, as it's by far the easiest manner of getting up to 88."

"I was meaning to ask this before," Visiting Marty said, "but I never got around to it. Anyway, now that you mentioned it again – what is powered running? I've never heard of it before." Doc nodded to indicate that he hadn't, either. "So if you could tell me, I'd really appreciate it."

"All right" Emmett said. "The actual system of powered running is fairly simple. Follow me and I'll show you outside." He took a plutonium bottle – Doc noticed that it contained far more water than the previous bottle – out of the refrigerator and walked out to the backyard of the garage. There, as Doc and the Marty's watched, he looked at the bag. "Let's see… it's about 1:17 now, so 1:20 PM should do." He tapped that time into the keypad. "Marty, would you mind being my assistant?"

"Nah, I wouldn't" Local Marty said, taking the bag and the plutonium bottle. "I've done it before, after all." He then started walking off to the other side of the backyard.

"What's he going to do?" Visiting Marty asked.

"Just watch" Emmett said, smiling. "You'll find out soon enough."

And they did. As Local Marty arrived on the other side, he gulped down the plutonium out of the bottle. Moments later, he began glowing a soft shade of green. "So _that_ is how they do it" Doc whispered, amazed. "Drinking plutonium. This is so strange, I would've never guessed this, or even believed it, hadn't I seen it with my own eyes."

Emmett opened his mouth to say something, but was stopped from doing so as Local Marty started running back. The visitors looked at the teen, whose speed was rapidly increasing, with awe as Local Marty shot through the fields with speeds of sixty miles per hour and increasing, the green glow becoming brighter with the second. Then, as he had passed eighty, a few sparks of electricity appeared in front of him, crackling as they grew bigger. Doc was about to say something about it as he noticed something else. Marty was headed straight towards them and would reach them within seconds. He started to run away…

…as the local teen simply lit up in a flash of light and a sonic boom shattered through the fields, and he was gone.

Visiting Marty just got his mind together to jump in time as yellow/greenish fire trails shot past him. "Whoa!" he exclaimed.

"Great Scott!" his friend agreed. "He travelled through time!"

"That is correct" Emmett said, smiling. "Marty did indeed break through the temporal barrier. He should return to the spot where he left in about… one minute and forty-nine seconds."

"Great Scott" Doc repeated. "This is amazing. I guess that this time-hopping thing does have it's positive sides. I never would've gotten a chance to see this otherwise."

"And that's great because?" Visiting Marty asked.

Doc sighed. "You know what I mean, Marty" he said. "Don't be too negative all the time. You've just had a nice long sleep. Don't tell me you're getting annoyed already."

"Well, I miss my home" Visiting Marty said. "And while this is very interesting, shouldn't we try to see whether your other self can help us?"

"We could" Emmett said. "But I think that we should wait, first. Marty is due to return in a few seconds from now."

As if to illustrate the point the local inventor had made, triple sonic booms shattered through the neighbourhood and Local Marty returned, still going at eighty-eight miles per hour. Luckily, Doc and Visiting Marty had already stepped out of the way, causing the teenager to be able to race on unharmed and stop just before reaching the house. "This is heavy" he muttered. "It remains exciting every time, isn't it?"

"Oh, it definitely does" Emmett said. "But, anyway, as our visitors said while you were… well, gone would be the proper term, I guess… I should probably have a look at the time machine."

"I don't want to rush you into anything" Doc assured him, giving his Marty a disapproving look. "If you want to hear the story of what is different in our worlds first, that'd be fine with me. I'd like to get home fast, but I don't want to put too much pressure on you."

"To be honest, I would, actually" Emmett admitted. He then looked at Marty, and smiled faintly. "But we'll keep it short, okay?"

Visiting Marty smiled back. "Okay."

"Well," Doc started, as they walked back inside and sat down on the couches again, "I guess the divergence really starts with the first test of the time machine. On October twenty-sixth, 1985, I tested my time machine with Marty for the first time at the Twin Pines Mall parking lot – it's a place where vehicles are stored, by the way. It worked, and I was about to go to the future with it when the Libyan terrorists from which I had stolen the bomb showed up and shot me."

"Terrorists?" Emmett said, clearly unfamiliar with the term – or wanting to focus on something else than the fact that his other self had just told him he'd been shot.

"Um, yeah" Doc said. "You don't know the word?"

"Nope" Emmett said. "Either they don't exist, or some alternate term showed up for them here."

"I prefer the first option, as they aren't really nice people" Doc said. He then paused, and added: "You know, if you're going to remain confused like you are now about my terminology, then maybe it's better if _you _tell your side of the story first. It'll help us make sense of what we should tell you and what not, so that we don't over-complicate things for you."

"You probably have a good point there" Emmett said. "So, anyway, I tested out my time machine on the same date, but it was in my backyard. I was the one to use it first, and Marty was the second. He wanted to go to the future, but we forgot to set the destination time so he arrived in 1955, which I had previously put in as the time and date where I conceived the flux capacitor, instead." He blushed. "That was really stupid of me."

"I did some stupid things too" Doc said. "Anyway, my Marty ended up in 1955 as well, even though the circumstances were different, involving the terrorists that I mentioned before. He was just using the machine as a quick get-away, not as a time machine, and didn't think of that until it was too late."

"I guess that would be a possibility with your type of temporal device" Emmett said. "Fascinating. But, anyway, Marty arrived in 1955, headed up-town and saw his father in Lou's Café, where he had gone in to search for my phone number. He ended up following him, and intervened as his father fell out of a tree and was almost hit by Mr. Baines, Marty's maternal grandfather, who was jogging down the street in front of his house."

"That happened in our universe too!" Doc exclaimed. "This is amazing! I can't believe how much is actually similar, despite our universes being so different, fundamentally."

"Yes, it's rather intriguing" Emmett said. "Anyway, Marty woke up in his mother's bedroom, where Lorraine thought that his name was 'Calvin Klein' as it was written all over his underwear. She also had a crush on him. That wasn't really obvious, though, as she was preoccupied with something else at the time – Marty's bag, and the flux capacitor on it. She confronted him with it, and Marty confessed that it was a time machine. Lorraine accepted the story after they had sneaked away from the house and Marty demonstrated it to her that night with a bottle of plutonium. He stayed at the Baines' house that night, luckily no longer being the victim of Lorraine's crush which had faded upon hearing that Marty was her son. The next morning at 6 AM, Marty said goodbye to his mother, told her a few things about the future like how she shouldn't drink, that she shouldn't punish him heavily for setting fire to the living room rug and rewarded her for helping him by telling her about the lightning striking the clock tower on Saturday, November 12th, 1955. Then he departed for that evening, to watch said strike and assure him that all was well – which it was, as Lorraine and George were watching the lightning as he arrived and they were very much in love. Marty then headed back to 1985 where he confronted me with the mistake I made, went home – and arrived in a much happier family than he'd been in before."

"The last part – about the happier family – sounds similar, but the rest doesn't" Visiting Marty said. "This is pretty strange, you know. I can't see myself actually becoming friendly with my mom while in the past. She kept hitting on me in our world."

"Well, I suppose that the fact that she quit doing that after she realized that I was a time traveller and her own son managed to change my mind about that" Local Marty said, shrugging.

"I suppose" his other self replied.

"Anyway," Emmett said, "as Marty had arrived back to the future, I took a time trip as well, to the future – thirty years into the future, which Marty had been planning to do but was not in the mood for now after his little adventure in 1955. I looked Marty up and saw that he had got a pretty happy future, even though he occasionally had problems with being called chicken. Nothing major, though."

"It's not a problem!" Local Marty exclaimed. "I just don't want people to think that I'm a coward! Can't you understand that?"

"Sure I can, but what will it help you?" Emmett pointed out. "Seriously, what change will it make if you're called a wimp or not? Will it really make you have such a terrible life if you allow people to call you a chicken on just one opportunity?" He paused for a moment, then continued. "Anyway, I didn't see anything else that was really notable, so after looking around a little more, I went back home. We've been making occasional time trips ever since."

Doc shook his head. "This is amazing" he said. "You never took Marty and Jennifer – I assume she still is Marty's girlfriend, by the way – to the future, and Marty still has a problem with being called chicken?"

"It's not a problem!" Local Marty called out again.

"Yes, it is" Visiting Marty said, somewhat miserably, as he clearly remembered what horrors could've happened when he was still reacting to being called a chicken. "Listen, me… I don't want to get into this discussion again, as I've already had it with one of my previous selves, but trust me, you should really ignore it when Needles or other people call you a chicken. It'll only cause disasters. I know from experience."

Local Marty shot him a look. "Yeah, right" he muttered. "You know, I can't believe that you're siding with them." With 'them', he obviously meant both Doc's. "I appreciate how Emmett is my friend and all, but he really should mind his own business in cases like this."

Visiting Marty sighed. "Looks like I won't be able to avoid having to tell you about this" he said. "But I'm warning you – it's a long story. Are you sure that you don't have a problem with being called 'chicken'?"

"Yes I am" Local Marty said. "I can't believe you actually humiliate yourself in that way by refusing a dare. But go ahead and tell your story. I'm curious what you'll tell me in your obviously useless attempts to convince me. I won't be convinced anyway, no matter what you'll say, because my point is the right one and nothing you can say will turn me away from that."

"You'll be surprised" Visiting Marty said back, allowing himself a smug grin.

"Go ahead and try to surprise me. Good luck."

"All right" Visiting Marty began. "In our world, I was also reacting when people called me a chicken. However, that all changed when Doc found out in the future that my son was in jail. He travelled back to 1985, picked me up as I was just reuniting with Jennifer, and transporting me to 2015. We headed over to the Courthouse Square. Jennifer was asking too many questions so Doc knocked her out with a futuristic device. He then told me that I had to go into the Café 80s, and meet there a guy named Griff, who was the one responsible for getting my son, Marty Junior, in jail. I had to tell him I would not participate in the robbery. So I walked up to the Café, entered and told Griff off. As I was exiting, he called me a chicken, and I reacted to that, which didn't end well as he swung a baseball bat at me at the result. That could've ended bad for me." He looked up. "With me so far?"

"I suppose so" Local Marty said, shrugging. "It was probably just bad luck for you, though."

"I'm with you as well, although I can't say I'm too happy you let slip to Marty what the name of his future son shall be" Emmett said, wincing a little. "Also, why was Marty Junior in jail? When I arrived, he was pretty much your average teenaged boy – not in a prison cell at least."

"Don't worry, we'll come to that" Visiting Marty said. "Anyway, I managed to get away – that's probably a story on it's own – and made Griff crash into the Courthouse window after a chase on hoverboards, future skateboards. You do know what a skateboard is, do you?"

"Yeah, I do" Local Marty said. "Guess they still exist because they don't have an engine in them. I use them occasionally, when I'm in a hurry and don't have plutonium on me."

"Ah, I see" the visitor responded. "So, anyway, Griff crashed into the window of the Courthouse and I got away. I bought a sports almanac that I wanted to use to get rich, but Doc told me to throw it away. We then arrived late at the place Doc had left Jennifer behind, so we had to fly over to our house in the future, as some cops had showed up to take Jennifer 'home'. So, while I remained at the car – or at least, I initially did, I admit that I looked around a bit later, Jennifer got her first good look at our home."

"Marty…" Emmett said, urging. "Don't tell him. No one should know too much about their destiny, you know that."

"Sure I do" Visiting Marty said. "But if his future is what you said, then it won't turn out like this – or at least, it won't if he listens to me today and forgets his problem."

Local Marty frowned at the repeated mention of the 'problem', and then asked: "Then what _was_ our house and future family like?"

"A mess" Doc said, speaking up before Marty could. "Your house wasn't that bad, but the neighbourhood looked horrible. Your family life was horrible, as you and Jennifer weren't exactly having the best relation, despite your claims otherwise. Your son was a wimp, your daughter was… well, there wasn't really anything obvious that was wrong with her, but I can't imagine she was really happy about her family. Jennifer was an alcoholic, you worked at a big company, with Needles as your supervisor, and were finally fired on the evening of October twenty-first, the date we travelled to, by – once again – your chicken problem."

This time around, Local Marty could care less about the mention of the 'problem'. "That sounds horrible" he muttered. "But… how? I thought I'd be a big rock star one day, and I can't imagine that my counterpart's and my dreams would change so much between the universes! And even if they did… well, I'm not supposed to have a lousy future like that!"

"Without getting into an argument about what you were 'supposed' to have, there was a very good reason for that future" Doc said. "On October 27th, 1985, one day after the time travel test that went wrong-in-a-good-way in both of our worlds, and one day after I departed to the future, you were caught up in an automobile accident. In case you don't understand, it's a situation where two vehicles crash into each other… it's probably the same as someone running at a high speed crashing into someone else who's either not running at all or running at a lower speed or at whatever speed. Anyway, you were injured, and while Jennifer, who was also in the car, escaped fine, you damaged your right hand against the car and could never play the guitar as you wanted to again. All your dreams about a musician future were shattered. And that all because you got caught up in an automobile accident that was a result of a drag race with Douglas Needles. And guess how he persuaded you to race him?"

Local Marty had fallen pretty much silent after that speech. "He…he called me a chicken?" he finally stammered.

"Right on the money" Visiting Marty said. "Well, I never saw it, Doc did, but he told me enough to learn me a lot about my future in that timeline, enough to confirm this to you now, and I've been through that racing event. Not entirely, but partly. I learned this lesson eventually, after going to 1885 after another series of mad adventures and having to face admitting that I was being foolish all the time or going into a showdown with the local Tannen, Buford 'Mad Dog' Tannen, and dying as a result. I suppose you can understand why I chose the former." Local Marty nodded, face pale. "And when I returned to 1985, I refused Needles' dare, no matter how many times he'd call me a chicken, I would never agree to his proposals again. I'm rather a chicken than dead."

Local Marty nodded, slowly. "I suppose so" he muttered. "I think that I'm going to have second thoughts accepting a dare from now on, too. But still… I can't really face the thought of being called a coward. I don't think I'm really ready for that."

Visiting Marty could understand that. "I know, it was a big step for me too" he said. "But just imagine this. How much will it cost you to admit to being a coward? Are you even being a coward in the first place? Taking the race with Needles as an example, if I had agreed, it wouldn't have made me less of a chicken, as I would've gone along with his game, doing what he wanted, because I was afraid what people would think of me otherwise. Isn't it much braver to stand up to him, say no, and ignore what he says? To be more firm and confidently turn his offer down?"

That was met with a lot of silence. Finally, it was Doc who spoke. "Great Scott, Marty" he muttered, half-smirking, "you really are turning into an adult! It'll take some time for me to get used to this…"

Local Marty smiled faintly, nodding. "Yeah" he said. "I'd never looked at it this way before. I guess that, essentially, you are right." He smiled again. "I suppose a 'thank you' would be on it's place here."

Visiting Marty blushed a bit. "Well, you are me, after all" he said. "I wouldn't want another version of me to get in trouble eventually, especially not over such an insignificant detail. It caused me a lot of trouble too, and I'm glad I helped you get rid of it."

"Me too" Local Marty said. "Thanks again."

"You're welcome."

Doc had been thinking about this for a moment. "You know what the weirdest thing is in this whole situation?" he said. "That is that I haven't made one small complaint about this." He shook his head, as the whole group laughed. "I guess it's around time to get back to the work on getting us back home. I'm getting too much used to this and telling other versions of me or Marty stories without bothering about the whole 'no one should know too much' idea."

"Yeah, it's not really like you to be so lenient" Visiting Marty agreed. "Even though I don't dislike that, I agree with you on the idea that we should try to get us home. I think my first serious attack of homesickness is coming up."

"And we can't have that happen to you" Doc said, optimistic. "Don't worry, Marty. We will get home, eventually – and I hope that Emmett here can help us with that."

"I could always try" Emmett said, smiling. "After all, if I put my mind to it, I can accomplish anything. What exactly is wrong with the vehicle again?"

"Well, you see…"

* * * *

Over the next two hours, Emmett and Doc exchanged short tales as they looked at the time bus. The local inventor was intrigued at the ability of a vehicle to travel through time, and had his visitor show him every single detail of the machine. Emmett also did various attempts to compare some of the designs of his flux capacitor to that of the DFSCUPCIF, hoping that it would help him out. He even dragged his oldest materials into it, hoping that it would work. As he was busy, Doc entertained him by telling a lot more stories, like how he was married, which was something that especially surprised single Emmett. Once again Doc explained the complicated tale about how he and Clara met and warned against Emmett trying to meet her as well. They exchanged a lot more stories about their lives so far and had a lot of fun together, as had Local Marty and Visiting Marty, who were sitting in the back of the train and watching their Doc's converse, and chatted about everything they could think of. However, as the clock finally chimed 3:30 P.M., all the stories had been told, Doc had filled the Fusion generator ahead of time just to have something to do, all the experiments had been tried from the sane ones to the weirdest they could imagine and were within their capability, and the results for the train had been nothing at all.

"I don't get it" Emmett said, as he stepped away from the control panel with a sigh. "I'm sorry. It's probably my fault, as I really don't understand how the thing works. You'd better move on. I understand it if you're getting tired of telling the same story over and over again and would like to stay here for a while yet, but you really should move on. I've got nothing to deliver you here in terms of help with the vehicle."

"That's too bad" Doc said, sighing. "Then again, I could've probably expected that the moment I flew the bus into this dimension. I had the feeling that this universe would bring us nothing. Sadly, it was right."

"Yes, I suppose it was" Emmett said, sighing as well. "Well, is there anything else you'd like to say to me before you two depart? Any 'wise words' from another dimension?"

"Not really" Doc said. "I don't have any requests or something like that. I suppose you don't either, Marty?"

The teenager had been thinking for a while, and now, he looked up to face his friend. "Actually," he muttered, "yes, I do. I'd really like to go through this world's method of time travel once."

Doc gasped. "Great Scott" he muttered. "Are you sure? You might end up being hurt, you know – after all, you have to swallow that plutonium to time travel this way. We don't know what this does to our body, as we're probably different from the locals of this world. You don't know what you're asking for, Marty. Also, there is the fact that Emmett might not allow you to do so."

"I would not allow him" Emmett said, thoughtfully, "but not because I want to deny him some fun. I just don't want him to be in danger – especially not alone, when he's never done this before." He looked at the teen. "Would you be fine if I'd carry you on my back? I've done it with my Marty a few times before, and it doesn't hurt the time travel in one bit, and it doesn't hurt you either. Does it, Marty?"

"Nope, you're completely right" Local Marty said, smiling. "Trust me – you'll be as safe as you can be with Emmett's method."

"Thanks" Visiting Marty said. He turned to Doc. "Doc… do you mind?"

"Well, if they are all fine with it, who am I to say no?" Doc said, shrugging. "I'm not your father, and you're an adult now, so you're free to choose this if this is what you really want. I would be a little hesitant about it if I was to be in your situation, but it's your choice."

Marty smiled. "Thanks" he said, looking at Emmett, who was holding a note and a pencil and quickly figuring out why the local inventor needed that stuff. "What kind of a jump are we going to do?"

"I suppose that we could simply go a minute or two ahead" Emmett said. "Shouldn't bring too much shock to our body from going to a different time, and it would be a nice quick trip. I'll even be slow to stop running after my returning, so that it's more gradual, which would most likely be better for you."

"Thanks, Doc" Visiting Marty said, smiling. "Uh… I mean Emmett."

"Never mind" Emmett replied, smiling as well. "Just a moment – I need to pick up my bag. It should still be inside the house. I should've thought to bring it along, but I wasn't expecting you to make a request like this. I'll be back in a few moments." With that, he disappeared inside.

As he went off, Visiting Marty looked at his friends and took a deep breath. "You know, while I was very much convinced just a moment or two before, I'm beginning to doubt whether I should do this now" he said. "You're right, Doc – it could hurt me."

"But Doc, I mean Emmett thinks it's safe" Local Marty argued. "And I know to trust him. He fixed the time device every time it was broken and I thought that I was going to be stuck in the past. And it got broken a few times. Not really heavy, of course, as that would disable us from travelling back all together, but sometimes the casing of the flux capacitor broke off, or the glass of the plutonium bottle broke. We had to keep remembering not to use it as a normal bag, or we would get into trouble. Do-Emmett's been angry at me for that a few times, but he was never really angry. He's a great guy, and a great friend." He paused for a moment, sad. "That's why I felt so sorry for him when I heard that you had a wife, Doc. Emmett doesn't, and I don't think he has a chance of ever getting one anyway."

Doc frowned, and then a small smile crossed his face. "I wouldn't be so sure of that" he said, thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?" both Marty chorused, bursting into laughter as they realised they said the same thing.

"You'll find out" Doc said, smiling. "Marty," that was Visiting Marty, "would you excuse us for a second? You can do this on your own, and if Emmett asks us where we are, you can tell him that we're taking a walk through the neighbourhood because I wanted to see if anything changed. That is partially the case of course, but it's not the main reason."

"Then what's-" Visiting Marty began.

"Patience" Doc said. "I'll tell you once we go. Good luck with your journey through time. Don't worry, it's like our local friend said – if my other self says it's safe, it's safe. I trust him to be able to judge that well."

After having said that, Doc and a confused Local Marty walked off, with an equally confused Visiting Marty staring after them and wondering what they wanted to do. As Emmett returned, though, with the bag and a bottle of plutonium, his attention was brought back to the matter at hand – his journey. He swallowed as he thought about the odd time travelling method, and felt so nervous that he actually found himself wondering for a moment what the local was talking about when Emmett acted where his counterpart and his Marty had gone.

"They went off" Visiting Marty simply said. "Doc wanted to take a walk, and Local Marty went with him – maybe 'cause he wanted to show him around. I don't know too much about it."

"Oh." Emmett shrugged it off, luckily not asking any more, and went back to the main subject. "Well, here's the bag. I already set the destination time for 6:40 P.M. That's less than two minutes from now plus three hours. I initially wanted to just hop two minutes and let your Doc prove it to you that you'd time travelled, but now that he's off for a walk, I suppose that hopping ahead and back three hours would be better."

"Well, you're the Doc, Doc" Visiting Marty said, smiling.

"All right" Emmett said. "Well, I put the plutonium in the bag – two portions, actually, I accidentally put in two portions 'cause I'm used to having enough for a return journey and wasn't thinking of the fact that there wasn't going to be one, so now that there is, we have enough – and I set the destination time, so now all I have to do is take my plutonium and off we can go." As Visiting Marty took a few steps back, Emmett opened the bottle and drank the plutonium inside. Moments later, he started glowing a relatively light shade of dark blue.

"Why do you have a different colour from the one my other self had?" Marty asked, stepping closer.

"I'm older" Emmett said, putting the top back on the bottle and putting the whole thing down on the ground. "Under 12 is yellow. Between 12 and 21 is green, and between 21 and 60 is red. Someone who turns 60 becomes blue, and as you age more and more – age physically speaking, not mentally – your blue becomes darker and darker. When your colour finally changes to black, you'll die within a year of old age. Since my blue is relatively light, I'm still in pretty good health. Especially for a 68-year-old – most people my age have a slightly darker shade. So I suppose the future healthcare did it's job well."

"My Doc had something done to him in the future as well" Marty commented. "He called it a rejuvenation."

"Oh yeah?" Emmett said, as he lowered his back to allow Marty to climb on it. "Interesting. Well, are you ready?"

"I think so" Marty responded, somewhat weakly.

"Then off we go!"

With that, Emmett started running on the same way Marty had just seen his counterpart do that. The teenager hung on to his alternate friend's shoulders as good as he could, but was soon assured that he wouldn't fall off as both Emmett and he had a relatively good grip on each other. Their speed soon increased, nearing 88. Marty took a deep breath as electricity began appearing in front of Emmett again and closed his eyes. He faintly registered a flash of bright light and a sonic boom sounding, and then, as he realised that everything was gone, he opened his eyes again to see dark surroundings. He had indeed travelled through time.

Emmett slowed down gradually and eventually came to a halt all together, allowing Marty to step off. "Well?" he said, cheerfully. "How did it go?"

"It was pretty cool" Marty said. "I was kind of wondering how it would feel, and I certainly hadn't expected it to be this exciting. It was really an experience of a lifetime. Thanks, Emmett."

"Glad to have been of service" the local scientist answered, stretching his back and arms. "Hey, take a look at that!"

As Marty looked, he realised what his friend meant. The bus was no longer parked in front of the house, instead moved into the driveway. "Yeah, you're right" he said. "That's pretty odd. I wonder why that happened."

"Me too, but I'm not going to ask" Emmett said, as he took off his bag and tapped in the new destination time as 3:40 PM that afternoon, then changed his mind and made it 3:45, because, as he said it himself, "it'll give you a bigger chance you'll be able to leave right away". He then lowered his back again. "Well, kid, are you ready for the trip back?"

"Sure!" Marty said, smiling a bit, as he climbed back onto Emmett's back. He then held on tight, as Emmett once again raced up to 88 – apparently, the energy he had gotten from the plutonium was enough to race up to that speed twice – and broke through the time barrier in a very similar way as he had just done. This time, Marty had got his eyes open during the journey, and while he initially didn't see too much due to a minor case of flash blindness, he soon regained his eyesight and realised that everything had been restored to the way it was before their journey. He sighed with relief as Emmett stopped them in front of the house, where Doc and Local Marty were just re-arriving.

"You're just back?" Local Marty said, smiling. "Took a long time, I suppose."

"Yeah, it did" Visiting Marty agreed. "Say Doc, while Emmett and I went three hours to the future, we saw that you moved the time bus to the driveway. Why do you think you'd done that?"

"Probably a natural reaction to you guys having been gone for three hours" Doc said, deciding to ignore the question about why his friend went to the future in the first place. "I had probably been searching you for some time, and had just gone inside to pause from searching you two and instead wait for you to return. That was probably the reason I moved the bus – I was going to go inside and wanted it to be safe." He looked directly at the teen. "Are you ready to go off now?"

"Certainly" Marty said. He followed Doc as the scientist stepped into the bus and had a few final words with Emmett before walking over to the control panel and lifting up the time machine into the sky (He had, after all, already loaded Mr. Fusion before the whole 'time travel by powered running' came up again). Marty smiled at the dumb-founded faces of Emmett and Marty at the flight of the time vehicle as said machine flew up into the air higher and higher and soon distanced itself from the mansion.

As they were safely in the air, Marty turned to Doc and asked the question that was burning on his mind and had been for about ten minutes now. "All right, now why did you have to go out there and talk to my other self? You sure made me feel surprised about that. I wasn't really expecting you to go off and have a chat with other-me about something. What was it about?"

Doc slowed the time machine down from sixty-five and accelerating to a steady forty and turned to his friend. "I had noticed – as you had, undoubtedly, as well – that your other self was sad about the fact that my other self was not married" he said. "Therefore, when I took him aside, I explained the matter of Susan Clayton, whom I had encountered in the world where you had still got the almanac in your possession, and told him all the details I could remember about her – her place of birth, how they met, her profession – I even gave him the picture I got from my other self. Now, your other self can perhaps look up Susan, somehow persuade her to come to Hill Valley, arrange a meeting with Emmett and see whether it's love at first sight or not. If Emmett doesn't know that he's meeting a potential girlfriend, he won't have the high expectations that will make the possibility of a meeting with Clara almost impossible to work out right. I realised that, unlike in the universe where you were never born, I could help my single self with talking about Susan Clayton, since you were around in this world to help make them meet."

Marty was silent at that for a few seconds. "That's pretty cool of you, you know" he finally settled on. "Helping your other self."

Doc shrugged. "We weren't doing anything useful here anyway, and I figured that I could at least make sure that they would not forget us here." He smirked a bit. "Well, looks like it's about time to travel to the next universe. Ready, Marty?"

"For the zillionth time in a row now – certainly" Marty said, chuckling.

Doc frowned at his comment, but didn't say anything, instead speeding up the time bus. Marty felt himself be carried into the familiar sensation of the bus accelerating and was shocked as Doc hit the brakes at eighty, slowing down to seventy again. "What's the matter?" the teen asked.

"Nothing big" his friend assured him. "I just forgot to type in the Destination Time. Let's see…"

"What time is it in our world now?" Marty asked, curiously.

"Monday, April fourth, 1988, 12:50 PM and 40 seconds" Doc responded. "Should be a nice time. Destination Time: Saturday, April second, 1988, 12:51 P.M., PF #50."

Marty nodded, then looked forwards as Doc hit the gas once more and the bus picked up speed quickly. Within seconds, the familiar flashes of light appeared, and the time bus broke through the dimensional barrier as it had done countless times before now, and entered the new universe.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own BTTF. This might come as a great surprise to you, so maybe you should sit down now. Do remember to read the chapter, though. **

**Author's Note**: New chapter. This is a quite interesting world, but not as much as the one before this one or the one after it. It could be seen as an interlude of some sorts, but it's not really that. Anyway, I hope you'll have fun reading it. And don't forget to review, of course!

**Chapter ****Ten**

Saturday, April 2, 1988

12:51 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

Doc didn't really want to admit it, but to be honest, he was getting tired of the dimensions that they were going through as well. As he lowered the time machine in the latest universe, he was therefore tempted to just get a quick look at what his other self was like, decide he was not the solution to the problem, and leave. He wasn't really in the mood to allow his counterpart – whatever the guy was like – to do a longer and more thorough inspection of the bus, as the wish to go home rose within him every single moment, and he couldn't help but feel miserable every time he heard the news that he could not go home, and that this world wouldn't be able to help him and that he had to go to the next world and try whether he was lucky in there. While the inventor had managed to keep his mood optimistic until now, he had to admit that this was slowly but surely changing to a rather pessimistic feeling that they would not get home, or at least not too soon. However he was resisting it, that realisation grew stronger with the hour and he would not be able to stand up to it for much longer.

Trying to at least keep Marty a little bit happy, the scientist didn't mention any of that to his best friend, also not in the new universe which they had just landed in. Instead, Doc simply moved the time machine around in the air, and flew it over to the place of the garage at JFK Drive. Marty kept equally silent, which made Doc realise that his friend must have spotted something, a fact that he didn't like. However, he didn't say anything, and the result was that neither of them had spoken a word since the dimensional transit, a statement that was still in place at the moment that they arrived at the place where the garage should be, and where Doc instead recognised the mansion having arisen once again, standing there as proud as it had been in the world where Marty was the inventor and Emmett was the unknowing assistant. The seventy-eight-year-old looked down to the mansion, and began to wonder what it's sudden reappearance could mean.

Apparently, Marty was thinking the same thing, as he was the one to speak up first. Without giving any explanation about what he was basing that upon – one more sign that Marty was also becoming more pessimistic with the second, the teen stared down at the mansion, and simply said: "Doc, do you think we could've travelled back to the world where I was a teenaged genius scientist and you were the owner of a horse ranch?"

Doc shook his head. "Unlikely" he said. "You can see that there are no horses around the mansion as there were in that version of the universe, and there's no sign that indicates that my local self owns a ranch. If this world is related to that world and has a smart you and a less intelligent version of me, it's a slightly different version, like a copy of a document which is wrinkled all through and has even got a few cracks in is much cleaner and therefore differs from the original one, even though it's essentially the same. However, since we have never seen something like that occur before in all of our dimensional journeys so far, our most likely guess is that this world is an entirely different world all together, which happens to have a different reason for the fact that in the temporal sequence that is the main timeline in this world, the mansion still stands."

Marty blinked a few times at that, not really grasping it, but then nodded. "I suppose" he said, obviously not really understanding it all thorough but getting the gist of it anyway. "Are you going to fly up and check what's different here, or are you going to keep the bus hanging here in the sky?"

"I might as well do that" Doc said, thoughtfully. "The first option, I mean." He landed the time bus in front of the mansion and exited, Marty following. After locking the doors of a bus – a procedure which he had gotten used to by now and therefore was handled rather swiftly – he and Marty walked up the path to this alternate, surviving version of the old Brown mansion.

As they arrived at the porch, Marty looked at Doc. "You want to knock this time?" he asked. "I mean, I did it last time. If you want to keep this whole thing equal, it should be your turn."

"Fair enough" Doc admitted. As Marty took a step back into the shadows – probably just in case he would be the one to show up, or so that he could catch the local inventor if he fainted – Doc walked up to the door and knocked, waiting for a response.

That wait didn't take all too long. Within seconds, the door was opened to reveal one more version of Dr. Emmett Brown. Somehow, Doc figured that he looked familiar – like one of the versions of himself that he had seen before. The thought didn't last long, though, as he had more important matters to deal with. Emmett's eyes went wide and his face pale, his hands almost breaking the doorknob they were holding. Just as Doc thought that his other self was going to faint, Emmett recovered. "Great Scott" he whispered, then calmer: "I wasn't expecting you today. You should know from our previous experience that coming up to another version of yourself without him knowing you're coming is a bad idea." Doc was barely given time to think about the 'previous experience' as his local self continued. "But you are here now anyway, and I can't stop you now, unless I want you to time travel which would merely complicate this. Are you from the future or from the past, and what do you require my help with or, if you don't need help, what do you want to do here?"

Doc frowned, not having expected his other self to take the fact that he was there so easy, especially not after his initial reaction. But he wasn't one to complain, and therefore, he looked up to Emmett and spoke. "I'm from neither future or past," he said, "and the matter that I do, in fact, require your help with, might be a little unusual, even for you. Do you mind if Marty, who's standing right here, and I come in?"

Bewildered, Emmett looked to the side and was obviously wondering how he could've missed the teen standing there. Focusing on the matter at hand, though, he looked at his other self again and said: "I'd be happy to allow you to come in, but I'd like a small explanation first. You said that you weren't from the future or from the past. How's that possible, and what do you want my help with?"

"It's probably a very complicated story to you," Doc said, "which is why I'm going to keep it short. The idea is that Marty and I were planning to test a new invention of mine today, a time machine which allows you to travel through dimensions as well as through time. I take it you know what dimensions are – and not just the fourth dimension, but the actual different universes?"

"Yes, I do know that" Emmett said. "I never expected to meet someone from one of them, though… but go on."

"Thank you" Doc said. "Anyway, we tried to test it, but that went wrong. After hopping through two dimensions, we wanted to return home, but got a problem with the Fusion device on the bus – yes, a bus, it's a new time machine for this special occasion – and ended up travelling through a lot more universes than we planned to do. While it's 12:55 PM on April second to you, it's 12:55 PM on April fourth to us, meaning we're two days out of synch. We just had a nice long rest in the world where our problem was solved – or at least, the source of the problem was found, the whole thing was not solved – and then we had to go on dimension-hopping as the locals still couldn't help us."

"Interesting" Emmett said, after waiting a few seconds to think it all over. "I must say, it sounds a rather unbelievable tale, and if I hadn't invented a time machine, I would've never believed it. Now that I have, though…" He paused for a moment. "You can come in" he finally settled on. "I'll go first, though – Marty's other self is over at my house today, and I'm not sure if Marty – either of them – would like to go through the shock of seeing an other self without any preparation, like I did."

"I'm kind of used to it by now" Marty said, shrugging. "But if you wanna do that for your Marty – go ahead. I don't mind."

Emmett smirked. "Glad you don't." They walked off, through the hall-way and into the living room of the big mansion. As agreed, Marty and Doc waited at the door, and after a short explanation to the local version of Marty, Emmett called out that they could come in, and they did. Doc immediately noticed that everything in the mansion looked still the same as it had in his own world. Barely noticing Local Marty sitting there on the bench in front of the television, staring with amazement at his other self, the inventor looked around in nostalgia. This really did give him a strong feeling of… of a home-coming. As if he was coming back to his rightful place. He smiled a bit, realising that this place was even closer to home than the mansion he had owned in the world of Smart Marty. The portraits of scientists and other things related to his job were around here while they hadn't been in the world of his less intelligent self. Shaking his head at his own nostalgic feelings, which were probably increased by the fact that he hadn't seen his real home, or at least the version in which he lived, for two days now, he looked around and saw that Visiting Marty had been guided to a place to sit by Emmett. Seeing no harm in it, Doc decided to sit down as well to complete the circle of four time travellers at one table and wait for the conversation to start.

He didn't have to wait long for that. Emmett immediately began to speak, eyeing his counterpart and Marty's counterpart with obvious interest. "This is certainly very fascinating" he admitted, looking at them. "Where do you come from? Well, from Hill Valley, I suppose, but have you noticed anything fundamentally different just yet in our world? If you really are from another dimension, then I suppose that your world is very much different from ours."

"It is" Doc agreed. "The most obvious difference that I've noticed so far is the fact that the mansion still stands."

He had expected a frown at that, or an astonished look, but instead, he got a look of understanding. "Ah, yes" Emmett said. "I suppose that unintended time travel change was never made in your world then. That's probably only natural in another universe – the chance that the mansion would survive was actually rather small, as in fact, it was very much a coincidence."

"What do you mean?" Doc said. "You mean you – or Marty – changed history? You somehow made the mansion survive?"

"That's correct" Emmett said. "Well, it was actually my younger self who did that. I'm not sure why it happened, but my best guess from a combination from my old and new memories is that he was just trying to be safe after everything that had happened. I suppose that after time travelling, I had become over-paranoid."

"Wait a second" Visiting Marty said, astonished. "Are you telling me that your younger self time travelled? He actually used the time machine? Your younger self from before the mansion burnt down?"

"Yes, he did" Emmett said. "I should probably not speak too early, but I think that this is where we see the key change. I suppose that, judging from your reaction, my younger self never used the time machine in 1955?"

"Um… no" Visiting Marty said. "What happened, then?"

"It's a complicated story" Emmett said. "I suppose it all started when Marty, preparing for the dance, noticed an old man walking across the street. He initially didn't pay too much attention, but as the man passed him, he got a closer look and recognised him. The man looked just like Biff Tannen – as the Biff Tannen Marty knew in the future, not the Biff from 1955 but the one from 1985 and even beyond. Marty then decided to use the nearby phone to call me whether Biff had any relatives back in the 1950s. I told him no, that the last male relative should've died in 1947. Both of us found that rather suspicious and since it was not even 6 PM yet, so not yet time to go to the dance, we both agreed that Marty should check it out. He did, and about a quarter later, Marty called me again – he'd seen the man talk to Biff, who was complaining about that 'book with future sports events you gave me'. I immediately put two and two together and realised that this man was Biff, or someone who was related to Biff, from the future."

"Great Scott!" Doc exclaimed. "I can't believe that we actually could've had the chance to stop the almanac problem right in 1955…"

"Well, we could, and we did" Emmett said, deciding not to ask what the 'almanac problem' could be. "I abandoned my work at the Square and took my Packard over to Mason Drive. Marty walked up to Biff and obviously annoyed him, so Biff chased after him and I slammed him on the head with a stone, while I was standing behind a corner. Not really a fair way to go, but a needed one. We got the almanac, checked that it was indeed a book from the future, and chased after older Biff, having gotten some information from a helpful old lady who'd seen him getting a ride from Gertrude Tannen. We followed Biff in our car and knocked him out just before he reached something that looked an awful lot like my DeLorean. I brought it to the Square and waited there for Marty to return from his work at the dance... he actually came earlier than intended, at 9:38, probably anxious to test out the time machine. We then went inside…"

Emmett Brown gasped, as he looked at the time machine that Old Biff Tannen – whom he now was sure it was – had brought back here. It was his, he was certain of that. Stunned, he switched the time circuits on. Apparently, the Last Time Departed read October 21st, 2015. He wondered whether this was simply the time that Biff had left at, or whether he really came from another time. Whatever the case, he had to return the time machine.

"Whoa" Marty commented, looking around as he sat down in the passenger's seat. "This is one heavy version of the time machine."

"It probably won't weigh anymore than the original one" Emmett said, somewhat confused. Even though Marty had explained to him that 'heavy' was a future expression, he still didn't really understand it. Instead, he focused on the machine in front of him, still looking astonished at everything. "Take a look at these buttons, though… up, down… do you think this machine can actually fly?"

"I don't know" Marty said, shrugging. "You should test it if you want to find that out. What are we going to do with the machine, anyway? Keep it around as a souvenir?"

Emmett shook his head, firmly. "And leaving Biff trapped years before he was born?" he said, smirking. "Come on. I'm not going to run the risk that he can still change anything. We have to take the time machine and Biff back to where they belong – which most likely means travelling to October 21st, 2015… at 7:25 P.M." He tapped in the date on the keypad.

Marty frowned. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I mean, we still have to get that whole plan through tonight. My return to the future isn't even safe until that is secured."

Emmett thought about that for a moment. "There's nothing to worry about" he said. "We'll simply come back a minute after we left. We can still proceed on schedule then. And the fuel is not something that we should be worried about – I checked this Fusion thing on top, and it apparently fuels the device. And the plutonium screen on here tells me that it's filled – or at least filled enough for two trips. We can safely depart."

Marty shrugged. "All right" he said. "Then it's okay with me." He smiled slightly. "You know, I can kind of see what's behind this for you. I always wanted to see the future too."

"That's not the main reason, but yes, I'm curious" Emmett said. "Well – if this time machine is indeed mine, we'll probably face our older selves as well. Are you feeling up to that?"

Marty shrugged once again. "If you are, I am."

Emmett smiled, pressing the 'UP' button and feeling a slight shock as the time machine lifted off the ground. He resisted another 'Great Scott' and instead smiled at Marty. "Then let's go!"

With that, he pushed down the accelerator, and the DeLorean shot through the streets. Within seconds, it hit eighty-eight miles per hour, and vanished into the future.

"Fascinating" Doc cut in. "So, you actually travelled to 2015? You saw the future as a thirty-five-year-old?"

"Yes, I did" Emmett confirmed. "It was quite a shock, I assure you. I'd known the basics about my future for a while now, but seeing it for real – and even beyond – was quite stunning. Some of the times, I had to pinch myself to make sure that I wasn't dreaming. Then again, it was very unbelievable. Flying cars, hoverboards, the beginning stages of fusion power and rejuvenation jobs… we arrived at Hilldale at 7:45, after having checked the phone book in order to find out where Marty's future self lived – we decided that trying to find a ninety-five-year-old me was not the right course of action. Anyway, when we flew in, we found something very interesting…"

"Well, here it is" Emmett said, as he flew the car (which he had gotten used to flying by now) into the streets of Hilldale. "Hilldale."

"I still can't believe I live in Hilldale" Marty said, shaking his head. "It's considered _the_ place to live in 1985, you know. Well, you probably don't know, but it is just new, and everyone wants to live there. And I do. I wonder what my future's like."

"No man should know too much about their own destiny, Marty" Emmett warned. "I've told you that dozens of times before."

Marty looked like he wanted to say something to doubt that, but he didn't get around to it, as instead, he let out a gasp. "Doc!" he exclaimed. "Doc! Look at that!"

Emmett looked, to see what his friend had already seen – themselves, standing down there in futuristic clothing and gasping just as much at them as they were. Regaining control of the vehicle, Emmett landed the DeLorean – right on a sign with 'No Landing', but he could care less – and stared at the people outside. Opening the gull-wing door, he took a direct look at his other self… and immediately regretted it. Within seconds, he started to feel faint and he felt like he was going to collapse, which he was able to prevent by looking the other way just in time. "Well, that's something that I shouldn't do again" he muttered, stunned.

"Great Scott!" his older self exclaimed. "Who – why – what are you doing here?"

"We're the two of you, if you hadn't figured that out yet" Emmett replied. "From 1955. I take it you're from 1985?"

"That's correct" Emmett '85 responded. "But to get back to my question, why are you here? You do know that it could be potentially dangerous to spend time in the future and interfere with one's older self, don't you?"

"I do" Emmett '55 said. "I wouldn't have gone, if not for this." He pointed at the car. "Apparently, Biff Tannen got a sports almanac of some sorts and went back in time with it to give it to his 1955 self, right on November twelfth. Marty realised who he was, and together we managed to take the almanac and knock out Biff – he's in the back."

"Amazing" Emmett '85 muttered. "Don't you agree, Marty?"

"Yeah, you're definitely right" Marty '85 said, still stunned at seeing his other self. "I can't believe that this happened. I mean, the whole mess with the sports almanac was supposed to be over, and…"

He didn't finish his line, as Marty '55 let out a gasp. "Jennifer!" he exclaimed, pointing at an unconscious figure lying behind their older selves – Emmett supposed that this had to be Marty's girlfriend from the future. "Why is she unconscious? What did you do to her?"

"It's a complicated story" Emmett '85 said. "Something that you shouldn't know. I suppose a 'thank you' would be on it's place here, but after that, it's right back to 1955. Time travel is dangerous." He took the almanac from his younger self. "Which is exactly why I'm intending to burn the almanac this time."

"Aw, Doc…" Marty '85 complained.

"No, Marty" Emmett '85 said, firmly. "I believe you've seen enough evidence of the fact that having such a book fall in the wrong hands – well, not that yours are the wrong hands, but just imagine what Biff could've done with this. I don't think you'd like to have the burden of having done just a fraction of that, do you?"

"No" Marty '85 admitted. "You're probably right. I still think that I wouldn't be as bad as Biff, though."

"Well, we'll probably never find out about that" Emmett '55 said. "Come on – let's go back in time. My other self is right. Time travel does cause a lot of problems."

Emmett '85 thought about that for a moment. "That's right" he said. "Which is why I'd like to ask you something."

"Go ahead" Emmett '55 said, wondering what his older self could mean.

"If you are from November twelfth, 1955, then Marty has probably been complaining to you about something that happens in the future all week" Emmett '85 said.

"That's correct" his younger self replied. He was wondering what the older inventor could have to say about this, as the older man continued: "And I'd like to ask you whether you would simply drop your stubborn feelings, and listen to him. Marty is a good kid, and this time he's completely right in his warning. And if you won't allow him to tell you, I'll tell you, because my Marty has eventually managed to warn me too and I'm still very grateful for that today."

Emmett '55 was stunned. "You mean, I have to allow him to tell me about my destiny?" he squeaked, from astonishment nearly making the mistake of looking into his other self's eyes again. "But I can't do that! If I change time so we don't meet, then we could have a time paradox on our hands!"

"A what?" Marty '55 said, confused.

"Complicated story, I'm not entirely sure whether I understand it myself" Marty '85 said. "It's one of those things that could destroy the whole universe."

"Destroy the whole universe?" Marty '55 said, stunned. "Doc, why haven't you ever told me about that yet?"

"Wasn't erasure bad enough of an idea?" Emmett '55 responded. "I didn't want to make you too worried…" He sighed. "But yes, it would be possible in this situation."

"Yes, it would - if you _refuse_" Emmett '85 said, firmly. "It would be a possibility if you refuse to listen to Marty now. Allowing Marty to tell you would only help the universe, not the other way around as you've been thinking."

Emmett '55 was about to give another reaction, when he realised something. His other self was dead serious about this, he could hear that. And he wouldn't lie to himself, would he? No, that was something that he'd never do. Not to himself, and not to anyone else if he could help it. Then why would he do it now?

Did he really have to allow Marty to go ahead?

Finally, Emmett '55 sighed. "Go ahead" he finally whispered. "Tell me. I guess that it's unavoidable now." He sighed again. "But it'll better be good."

Once again, Doc interrupted Emmett's tale. "So, you actually were told about you getting shot in 2015? You didn't have an entire discussion with Marty about that at the clock tower?"

"That's right" Emmett agreed. "I returned home with Marty, we waved after our other selves who dropped us off before going back home to 1985, and then I conducted my experiment to send Marty home. I had to suppress the urge to ask whether my other self could just take Marty home so I could keep the younger version of the DeLorean in 1985, to experiment with it, but I figured that it would be too dangerous. So, I eventually let it go, and I didn't really miss it very often. Somehow, this whole thing indirectly caused me to not burn down my mansion, and I continued to live there. Marty and I often played hide and seek in the mansion when he was young, so we had a lot of fun with that. Then, 1985 rolled around, I went to 2015, found Marty in trouble – or, as I now know, pretending to be in trouble – and I put two and two together from my memories and figured that this was the event I had to pick up Marty for. I went back in time, my memories were completely erased of the 1955 experience and that caused for confusing situations with Marty. Finally it did go all right as Marty didn't really dare to voice his thoughts that he'd lived through this before until we'd dropped off my other self in 1955. We went home, found to our joint shock that the mansion still stood, only for Jennifer to wake up and wonder what we were surprised about. We eventually decided to tell her the truth, and, after everything we'd gone through, I figured that it would be best if I was to destroy the time machine. However, there was one more thing from my time travels that required attention. After some hesitation I finally decided to go ahead at that point, and try to drop a subtle warning about the race Marty was going to end up in that afternoon, by first dropping hints about the stupidity his chicken problem. I didn't manage to convince him entirely, and then I took a more drastic measure."

"What was that?" Visiting Marty asked, curiously.

"I told Jennifer" Emmett said. "She was stunned, but thanked me for telling her and as the race rolled around…"

"Wait a second" Local Marty said. "That's my tale to tell." He smirked, and looked at the visitors. "You see, it went like this…"

Marty felt annoyed, as Needles and his gang arrived next to him at the traffic lights at Hilldale. He figured that there was no one more annoying than Douglas Needles. Not only did Needles annoy him, he also played the same music Marty liked to listen to from his stereo's. The teenager tried to calm down, as Needles made some comments about him and his truck. "Let's see what she can do" Needles suggested. "Next green light."

"Don't do it, Marty" Jennifer urged.

"Relax, I wasn't going to do that" Marty said. "I'm not the type to race. Especially not in my new truck."

Needles frowned. "What's the matter" he said. "You chicken?"

Marty tensed, as the gang laughed. He couldn't believe they had the disrespect to call him that horrible word. "Nobody calls me chicken!" he exclaimed, furious. Those annoying, those, those…

"Marty, don't…" Jennifer pleaded. Marty felt disgusted at that. "Stay in your own seat" he told her. He couldn't believe his own girlfriend was actually suggesting he'd turn down a dare like that. Did she want him to be humiliated for the rest of his life? He turned on the engine, waiting for the green light to show up.

As it did, both trucks shot forwards. Jennifer looked panicky for a second, then seemed to calm down as, in the blur of the moment, she got an idea. Marty, who was focused on the road and on Needles next to him, didn't notice and was helpless as Jennifer suddenly pushed him to the side, moved her foot over to where his was, kicked it off the gas and hit the brakes.

Marty's mood went from normal to astonishment, then anger, then frustration, then confusion and relief within just two seconds as it all occurred. The truck slowed down, and Marty was just about to shout in anger at Jennifer – he was now losing the race, after all – as a Rolls Royce appeared in front of them, just narrowly avoiding them and Needles. The Rolls Royce slowed to a halt and the truck did the same. Marty had the presence of mind to back off and drive away. He knew that there was nothing the Rolls Royce driver could press charges on him for, but he wasn't about to face an angry driver. He drove the car into Hilldale, avoiding all other traffic on their way, and parked it there.

He then looked at Jennifer in astonishment. "Thanks" he whispered. "But… how on earth did you know about that?"

"Doc told me" Jennifer said, smiling. "He told me that you were going to break your hand and had to give up your guitar career after this incident. I just didn't want that to happen to you." She patted him on the back. "I'm glad that I could prevent it."

"Me too" Marty said, still shaking a bit. "This is heavy… I don't think I'm ever going to listen to someone calling me a chicken again!"

"And I didn't" Local Marty finished, back in 1988. "I never let anyone persuade me into something because of that again. That near-miss was bad enough for me."

"I can understand that" Visiting Marty muttered. "This is quite the story."

"I know" Local Marty agreed. "Well, and ever since then, nothing big did happen. I graduated from High School, helped Doc with projects from time to time, but nothing really important happened."

"Marty!" Emmett said, sounding a slight bit disappointed. "Are you sure? You know what happened to me on New Year's Day of 1987…"

As the alarm bells in Doc's head began to ring, the cause of those bells opened the door and entered the living room. "Emmett?" Susan Clayton-Brown asked, walking over to her husband. "I was wondering when we – Great Scott!"

"Great Scott?" Emmett repeated, amused.

"I suppose you're rubbing off on me" Susan admitted, looking around. "What's going on here? Why is there another you and another Marty? I thought you weren't supposed to finish the time machine for another three months?"

"We're from another dimension" Doc said. "And if you are unfamiliar with the term, then it would suffice for now to say that, while it will probably be very surprising to you, in our world, you are not my wife."

Susan's eyes went wide. "Are you serious?"

"He's telling the truth" Visiting Marty said, looking at her slightly intrigued. "I, for one, have never seen you before – we've only seen one universe in which you were around so far, and I didn't get to see you then… but I think I'm recognising you from Doc's description. I suppose you are Susan Clayton?"

"Susan Brown" Susan corrected. "But yes, Clayton is indeed my maiden name. But how… different dimensions?" She looked at her husband. "Emmett has told me something about it, but I wasn't expecting to meet someone from one of them…"

"That's the same here" Emmett replied. "I was expecting to have a normal day, no day that would include meeting people from another world. But now that we did…" He looked over at Doc and Marty, obviously a bit stunned. "You really don't know Susan? You're not married to her?"

"That is correct" Doc said. "My wife is Susan's great-great-grandaunt, Clara Clayton – yes, the one that died in the ravine. I saved her life in our world, took her back to 1985 after getting stuck in the past for a few years and, including the time we spent in the 1880s, we've been happily married for over thirteen years now."

"You married my great-grandaunt?" Susan whispered, stunned.

"You took Clara back to 1985?" Emmett added.

"You spent _years_ in the past?" Local Marty finished, as stunned as the other two had been.

"Yes to all of them" Doc agreed. "I did spend years in the past, married Susan's great-grandaunt and took Clara back to 1985. It was a quite confusing situation, though – Clara and I were trapped in 1985 after some incident with the time machine going to 1985 and being destroyed in a crash at the railroad tracks near Eastwood Ravine."

"Weird" Susan said, shaking her head. "The idea that you're from another world is already odd, but the thought that things like that are so different… Emmett destroyed the time machine in 1985 by hand. Well, not the car itself, but the parts belonging to it. Eventually, he got the idea that he should rebuild it in early March 1986. He's been working on it for two years now, and with Marty's help and mine, I'm confident that he'll finish it." She smiled at her husband, and kissed him.

Doc shook his head. "You may look similar to my Clara, but this will always remain an odd sight, I guess" he said. "I can't really see myself kissing you – no offence, of course, but I was always and am still loyal to Clara. After all we've been through, I have a hard time seeing myself with someone else, even if it's a very close relative."

"Yeah, I suppose I understand" Visiting Marty said, shocking his friend as Doc wasn't expecting Marty to speak up about this. "Remember the world where I was smart? The Clara Parker girl I married there did look exactly like Jennifer, but she made me feel a bit uncomfortable around her. And that was just the only universe… you've seen what, three versions of you married to other women? Julia, Susan and that Jennifer Clayton girl in the smart me world?"

"Smart me world?" Local Marty repeated.

"It's the oddest world you'd ever imagine" his counterpart said. "Apparently, I'm a genius. My other self was smarter than his Doc, even smarter than my Doc. He managed to figure out what was wrong with the time machine, and if he had been in possession of a working time machine, I bet he would've fixed it, too. I couldn't believe how smart he was, but it was true. He was a nice guy, just when he went to talk about scientific stuff, my head had the urge of falling off my shoulders as I couldn't understand a quarter of it."

Local Marty's eyes widened. "You're kidding" he muttered. "There's no way that could be true!"

"Marty is giving a bit of a one-sided explanation, but yes, it's true" Doc said. "It was rather odd for me as well, as I wasn't really expecting to see a Marty who was a genius and could build time machines either. But apparently, there is someone like that out there, and we've had the pleasure of meeting him. And I was glad it happened, since he did help me quite a bit."

Emmett shook his head. "I just can't see that" he muttered. "Marty smart? Well, he's a pretty smart kid, but never anything close to what you just described. Marty as a scientist pretty much belongs to fantasy land in my opinion, and even though I know that you're probably telling the truth and that you wouldn't lie, I can't resist the thought that it sounds very, _very_ odd."

"It is very odd" Doc agreed. "To us at least." He smiled. "But then again, a lot of the universes are odd – including yours. It sounded strange to us that if we had simply done what your and Marty's younger self did, we would've never seen Hell Valley and would've safely returned home without much trouble in the Old West and all that."

"Hell Valley?" Emmett repeated.

Doc nodded. "It's what we call the world Biff made when, in our dimension, he did succeed in changing history" he said. "It was, in short, hell. Biff had married Marty's mother, shot Marty's father, committed me, gotten Nixon re-elected up until 1985 and had the Vietnam War still raging. Gambling was legalized. The Courthouse had been turned into a casino hotel which Biff ran. Dave and Linda were…"

"Enough" Local Marty whispered, pale. "I can't believe that Biff would actually do that. I mean, it does sound a lot like him to be evil like that, but…" He shook his head. "To actually murder my Dad? Marry my Mom?" He looked up. "I am almost hesitant to ask, but what did he do to me?"

"He shipped me off to an overseas boarding school in Switzerland" Visiting Marty said, sighing. "When I first saw him in that world, he was mad at me for not being there." He winced at the memory. "I couldn't believe what I saw back then. Shouting insults about me and complaints to Mom… the weirdest thing was that she still insisted that I should respect Biff. Respect! I felt like throwing up at the mere word!"

"I take it Mom didn't know that Biff was the one to shoot Dad, then" Local Marty muttered, not really able to imagine how twisted Lorraine's mind would have to be in that case.

"No, she didn't" Visiting Marty said. "She hadn't gone quite that insane… even though she had become an alcoholic, like she was in the original timeline."

Local Marty shivered. "I'm glad that we didn't see that, then" he said. "How did you manage to fix that world, by the way? Like we did in '55?"

"Much the same, yeah" Visiting Marty said. "There were some differences, though. The whole thing took a lot longer. And we started interfering with history earlier in the day – I was actually there to watch Old Biff give the almanac to his younger self. The difference with you was that we had to be careful around Old Biff, as us being there depended on him returning the DeLorean to the future. You had no such issues, and could fix the mess in a few minutes while we took hours for it and just barely succeeded, too." His unhappy face then changed into a faint grin. "After making Biff – Young Biff, I mean – crash into a manure truck."

Local Marty burst into laughter. "Really?" he chuckled. "Again?"

"That's right" Visiting Marty said. "It wasn't really on purpose, though – as I escaped from Biff with help of the hoverboard and the DeLorean, Biff was so astonished when staring at me that he didn't notice the manure truck until he crashed it into it. I couldn't help but laugh when I heard him shout in frustration. 'Manure! I hate manure!'"

Local Marty smirked. "I can imagine that would've been hilarious to watch" he said. "Especially after what you probably went through…"

"That's right" Visiting Marty said. "But anyway…" He looked at Emmett. "Are you going to try to fix the machine? Not to attempt to push you into anything, but I would like to see whether you could get us home."

"For once, I agree with you" Doc said. "I'd hate to bother you too much, but the sooner we can leave, the better it really is for us. We wouldn't want to spend years travelling through dimensions, after all. So, if you don't mind…"

"Oh, no, I don't" Emmett said. "I can see what you are going through. Don't you worry – I'll have a look at your time machine right away. Where is it?"

"In front of the house" Doc said. "It's the bus there. I created this bus specifically for the dimensional device, but I am considering making a dimension-travel device for the other vehicles as well. That might be interesting, to have that ability in all of the time machines." He looked at Emmett. "Our other time machines are a DeLorean – a new one – and a train, by the way."

"A train?" Emmett said, eyes opening wide.

"Yes, a train" Doc confirmed. "How else did you think Clara and I got out of the Nineteenth Century? You know they didn't have cars back then. I had to build the time machine into an old steam train. I think the end result came out rather well." He reached into his wallet and took out a photograph of the train, handing it to his counterpart. "Take a look."

Emmett looked intrigued. "This.. this is fascinating" he finally muttered.

"Thank you" Doc said, blushing a little. "It was hard work for sure, but eventually, it wasn't really too hard to pull it off. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, I always say – and after all, Clara did help me a lot. She wasn't really too knowledgeable on the technical part of the time machine, but she could help me by handing me tools or actually working on the machine itself… but sometimes she also did other things that indirectly helped me, such as helping customers who wanted to purchase something and didn't need me to work on it. Clara really was a great help with that." He took out another photograph and handed it to Susan. "This is her. My beloved wife." He smiled in nostalgia.

Susan looked at it and gasped. "Golly!" she exclaimed. "She _does _look a lot like me!"

A curious Emmett switched photographs with his wife, and had a look at his other self's spouse as well. "You're right" he said, stunned. "If not for the hair colour, I would've said that it was you. And the eye colour, of course. It's blue with you, but brown with your great-great-grandaunt."

"I guess that's something that I inherited from my father" Susan said, smiling. "Dad had blue eyes. It ran in the family, and it was probably the only thing of his that I inherited, since other than that, I looked exactly like my mother."

"That's the same with me, I suppose" Visiting Marty said. "Or more accurately, my son. I still can't grasp how much he was the spitting imagine of me, back in 2015. Only his eyes were brown like Jennifer's and mine blue. And there was the fact that he was a complete wimp – but that doesn't have anything to do with the outside, which is what we're discussing now, and that's supposed to be avoided now anyway." He looked up at Doc, as if he was accusing the older scientist of something. "Isn't it?"

"Oh, yes, it is" Doc confirmed. "The Marty Junior that you would run into when time travelling now is an entirely different person from the teenager that you saw when you first travelled to the future. I won't tell you much specifics, but let's just say that if you were to go thirty years into the future from our present, you would see a kid who is about as self-confident and happy in life as you are."

Visiting Marty smiled at that. "That sounds good" he said. "What about the Junior of this future, um, Emmett?"

"I honestly don't know" Emmett admitted. "I haven't time travelled to the future ever since that one original trip, and that was when Marty still had his chicken problem. Since he no longer has it now, I'm not quite sure how his future will turn out. I'm hoping it will be as good as yours, but I could never really know that for sure until I finish the time machine. In the meantime, I'll be doing my best to help Marty by achieving his dreams." He gave his friend a pat on the back.

"And I hope that _your_ future looks good too, Doc" Local Marty said. "I have to admit that I was a little uncomfortable with Susan at first, as I'd been used to seeing you as a bachelor for so long, but I got over that, eventually, and now I'm hoping that everything turns out as fine as it can."

"Thanks, Marty" Emmett responded, smiling. "But, anyway, there's the matter of your time machine to attend to, isn't it?" He shook his head. "I suppose I forgot that for a moment. "Sorry, I'll go over right away and check what I can do right away."

"It's okay" Doc said, as Emmett stood up and walked outside. "I suppose that I was putting a bit too much pressure on you when I asked whether you could give the time machine a look right now, but I really do have the urge to get home as soon as possible. I'm not quite sure how long I'd be able to stand hopping through universes anymore."

"I see" Emmett said. "I'll see what I can do, then. What exactly was the issue again?"

"There was something acting up in the DFSCUPCIF" Doc said, as the two inventors walked outside. "I'm sure you've never heard of it, but it's the term for the alternate flux capacitor that I installed in the train time machine. It is supposed to send us through dimensions as we tap in a code on the keypad, but now it's sending us to random dimensions no matter how often we tap in the code to our home universe. The problem is apparently the Fusion reactor – which I should really fill right away for our trip to our home universe – which has overloaded causing the problem. The thing is that no one who is in possession of a time machine can fix it so far and you don't have possession of a time machine." He sighed. "That would, theoretically, immediately reduce our chances of you being able to help us to close to zero."

"Well, don't give up on me right away" Emmett said, smirking a bit. "You never know what I could.. well, at least _try_ to do for you." He walked up to the time bus. "So… this is your time machine? I wish I had mine finished already, we could compare them a bit. Granted, my DeLorean isn't the same as a time travelling bus, but you get the point."

"I do" Doc said, nodding. "Yeah, it's indeed too bad we can't see if anything matches up." He took out his key. "Just a moment."

"There's no hole" Emmett pointed out.

Doc pressed his thumb to the plate and held the key in front of it, smiling as the familiar hole formed and Emmett's jaw dropped. "There is one now."

"Great Scott!" Emmett exclaimed. "This is amazing! I suppose the technology is from the future?"

"Late twenty-thirties, yes" Doc confirmed. "I thought it could come in handy. I bought it in 2043, actually, so when I went to the store, this was an old model already."

Emmett smirked. "How times can change, huh?"

"Definitely" Doc smirked back. "So, you can go in now."

Emmett did so, and looked around with awe and with even more fascination than he had when looking at the bus' exterior. "This is fascinating" he admitted. "I don't have a flux capacitor like this one, but it looks like an intriguing concept. Once I get finished with the normal DeLorean, I should consider building one of them."

"I don't think that sounds like a good idea" Local Marty said. "You noticed what's happening to our other selves because of it."

"True, true" Emmett admitted. "It's still fascinating, though. To think that something like this could actually become a reality in the far future." He smirked at Susan. "I suppose seeing this is erasing any doubts you could have about me really having invented a working time machine, isn't it?"

"I never had any doubts" Susan corrected him. "Well, at the very beginning, of course, but not after you showed me all of your files and your already finished works and the dismantled DeLorean. There was the fact that Marty confirmed your story to the tiniest detail, and of course that film that Marty and you made. That was probably the big one, as it was the actual proof of this. You couldn't afford that kind of photographic fakery, and I doubt that it would be real easy to do or get to be done anyway for a regular person. And that added to the rest of the proof..."

"Yeah, that was probably used as a convincing trick in the previous universe where we saw you too" Doc said. "That's kind of funny, actually… in all of the universes we've seen you, so far – well, there's only been two until now, but still – you end up being married to some version of me who does not or does not yet possess a working time machine, while he did have one around once."

"And there's the fact that both worlds are partly almanac based" Visiting Marty pointed out. "Remember? This world has the divergence in you and me from the '50s stopping Biff's rise with the almanac, and the other world had me keeping the almanac."

"There's actually a world like that?" Local Marty exclaimed, stunned.

"Yeah, there is" Visiting Marty confirmed. "It wasn't the greatest world I'd ever seen, though. My other self had still had that chicken problem, and the Rolls Royce accident. His relationship with Doc was strained and if he hadn't had the almanac, his future had been miserable. With his bad temper and not being friends with Doc, though, I'm not quite sure what his future will be like, and whether it will really end up good for him in the long term."

"I suppose so" Local Marty said. "I'm certain that I wouldn't end up becoming as bad as Biff, though."

"Yeah, that's a point that I agree with you on" Visiting Marty said. "I would never become anyway close to how bad Biff was. I couldn't even murder someone if I wanted to, let alone shoot so many people without caring for it like Biff did. So, I'm sure…"

"Let us go back to the time machine, okay?" Doc gently urged. "I can understand that you're feeling quite uncomfortable around the idea of you becoming as bad as Biff, but we really do have something else to do now."

"You're probably right, Doc" Visiting Marty admitted. He looked at Emmett and said: "Well, um, alternate Doc, what are you going to do now?"

* * * *

Once again, that question was one that kept the inventors and the Marty's busy for quite some time. Emmett inspected the time machine as thorough as he could, trying to find a way in his head to figure out how to get the DFSCUPCIF to work on a way that would hopefully return the time travellers to their home dimension. He tried everything that he could come up with, and got all the tools and comparison material from the DeLorean. It took him a whole hour and a half, but eventually it was about 2:50 PM and still nothing had changed. Emmett, Susan and Local Marty stopped their work and their thoughts and exited the bus, pessimistic.

"You did a good job" Doc said, trying to cheer his other self up. "It wasn't your fault that you didn't have the necessary materials to do the job that I was looking for."

"I suppose so" Emmett said, sighing. "It's too bad, though, that I wasn't able to help you. I was really hoping that it would go all right this time." He sighed again. "What are you going to do now?"

"What else?" Doc said, half-chuckling. "Dimension travel again to see what we encounter next. I don't have much else to do anyway."

"I suppose so" Emmett agreed. "Good luck, then."

"Thank you."

Emmett and Local Marty waved at their other selves, as Doc stepped back inside the train and walked over to the keypad. "Let's see… April second, 1988, 12:52 P.M…"

"You really are getting used to this whole resetting thing, aren't you?" Visiting Marty said. "I mean, didn't you have that temporal thingy which you set up to give the normal time and the time lapse and all?"

"Oh yes, the Temporal Natural Flow Monitor" Doc confirmed, looking at the object in question. "Let's see if it still works… Temporal Natural Flow Monitor on. Display current time lapse." He studied the screen for a few moments, then went back to the time circuits."

"And?" Marty couldn't help but ask.

"It did work all right" Doc confirmed. "According to the monitor, 2 days, 3 hours and 44 minutes have passed since we first went off, which is proven correct when looking at my watch and if I am not incorrect…" The scientist looked over to Marty's arm. "…and at yours" he finished. "I suppose that the TNFM works as it should."

"Making it the only one of the inventions around here that does" Marty said, somewhat depressed.

"That's not true" Doc pointed out. "The hover conversion still works, and we can still travel through time and dimensions – which we're about to do now." Having said that, he turned the hover switch to 'on' and calmly looked out of the window as the bus lifted up again. "Well… are you ready?"

"Why shouldn't I be?" Marty quipped. "Just make this be so that it'll be a quick locating procedure… I'm not really in the mood to spend minutes searching for your other self."

"Well, you know that does not lie within my capabilities" Doc responded, taking a moment to look over at his other self and his Marty, who were still waving down below. "But I'll try to make it be as quick as possible, yes." He looked over at the time circuits. "Destination Time: April 2, 1988, 12:55 P.M., PF #50."

"Why do you keep that dimension code?" Marty asked, leaning back in his seat. "I mean, you know it's not going to make us end up home. Why not try something different for a change?"

"Why should I?" Doc argued. "I mean, there is no clear reason that it _will_ change anything. We could have a similar chance of ending up in a world where we'd like to end up in as in the previous worlds. And it's better to at least have a chance that we'll end up home than none at all."

Marty sighed. "Go ahead, then" he allowed. "I'm not really planning to discuss this with you in great detail. I just thought that it would be a nice idea. I suppose that I was wrong." He shrugged. "Doesn't bother me, though. Just go ahead and travel to the next universe – I'm getting kind of tired of this."

Doc glanced at his friend. "Tired? Now?" he said. "Marty, we've been travelling for just five hours since we departed from the world where we rested. You can't be exhausted already."

"I'm not, I just mean… I'm not really liking going through this whole process" Marty clarified. "I'd like to just visit a world where they greet us with a smile and say that yes, they can help us home."

"Well, I'm sure that a world like that will undoubtedly appear some time in the near future" Doc said. "All we need to have is patience, after all."

"I don't have patience."

"Well, that's not my fault" Doc replied. "But, anyway… are you ready to go?"

"As I already said, yes" Marty said. "I just hope that we'll find something different this time… a world that can actually help us for a change."

"Believe me," Doc agreed, as he accelerated the time bus through the sky, "I think I couldn't ever agree more with you on that than I do now."

And moments after that, the time bus broke through the time barrier, and vanished into a new dimension.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note: **Well, here I am again, updating my story 'Travelling Through Dimensions'. About time, isn't it? Well, this is the Marty Brown Universe. If the name doesn't tell you enough, reading it will.

**Disclaimer: Still don't own the movies. The BTTF movies, that is. Not that I own any other movie either, of course, but you get the point. I hope. **

**Chapter ****Eleven**

Saturday, April 2, 1988

1:11 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

"Doc, your house is back!"

Dr. Emmett Brown looked at his friend with a slight hint of amusement. "I can see that, Marty" he said. "There's no need to become enthusiastic all of a sudden."

Marty nodded. "I guess not," he allowed, "but it's a step in the right direction, isn't it? I mean, your house hasn't been around for… how long has it been?"

Doc looked over at the house in front of him, which they had travelled to after seeing the garage torn down and the mansion not being there either, and tried to think back. He'd lived in the garage in the previous universe, however Susan and his other self had been considering to move, especially now that Susan's pregnancy was advancing. In the plutonium world, he'd also lived in the garage, and in the IQ switching world, it had been the mansion. In the world before that, though, he'd lived in the house he owned now. That was… what, thirty hours ago for them? It had been some time, at least. The inventor held back a yawn and turned to Marty. "It's been some time" he admitted. "However, you should not get your hopes up all of a sudden. This is another possibility of a me that has invented a time machine, but becoming all too hopeful won't help us. Most likely, my other self has a time machine around or is busy building his second one after the first one has been destroyed in 1985, but that doesn't mean that he'll be able to help us. Remember my counterpart from the last world where we saw this house standing? The one where you never changed your parents' first meeting? He did have a time machine, but he wasn't able to help us. It was probably something that had to do with the fact that he'd never invented the DFSCUPCIF like me… which, once again, whether you like it or not, makes your other self from the 'smart you world', as you like to call it, a very unique person and the fact that he was able to help us was, considering the circumstances, very odd. I do believe that, if having had a time machine at his disposal, he could've helped us. Maybe we should've stayed there for a while."

"Doc!" Marty exclaimed. "It was kind of nice to visit his world, and I wouldn't mind coming back, but living in such an awkward world for more than just one day, for several days and nights… I could go mad, I think."

Doc sighed, parking the time bus in front of the house where his other self lived. "Marty, isn't it quite obvious, even to you, that you are possibly exaggerating slightly?"

Marty sighed. "Never mind" he muttered. "Let's just check this world out and see what we can find here." He took a bite of a slice of bread that had been taken along by Doc on the original journey to the universe where his son lived in the present. Their food supply was steadily running out, and Marty wondered how long it would take before it would all be finished. He decided not to speak up about it, though, as it would undoubtedly give Doc a reason to complain about how he was over-reacting on his food issues.

Anyway, the two time travellers exited the bus, Doc locking it as always before they walked up to the house that looked so familiar yet so foreign as they knew it was not the one they were familiar with. Doc noticed that the house had changed quite a bit from how he knew it, resembling the state of the house in the world where Marty had been trapped in the '50s. He wondered whether this would be a repeated visit to that world.

"So…" Marty said, as they walked up to the front door. "Should I knock again, or do you want the honour this time around?"

Doc shrugged. "We could split up" he said. "You could go to the back door and I could remain here. I suppose that would enable us to get what we want the soonest. If either of us does not receive any response, he could simply go to where the other is. I suppose that could be quite efficient."

Marty shrugged. "Whatever you say, Doc" he said, obviously not really caring about it. "I'll go through the back door, then. I guess I'll see you in just a minute or two."

"Yes, it shouldn't take all too long" Doc said, once again holding back a yawn. He was okay with staying up long, but having to explain the same story over and over again did not exactly keep people more awake and while the inventor was by far not on the verge of collapsing yet, he was not feeling fresh and awake, not as fresh and awake as he should at least. He looked after his friend as Marty disappeared around the corner, and then looked at the front door, and rang the doorbell.

Within moments, the door was opened, and Marty appeared at the door – the local version of him, at least. For a moment, Doc didn't see anything wrong, and was about to speak up when he noticed. Then, he felt so stunned at the teen's appearance that he couldn't speak. Marty had grown about two or three inches, had strangely familiar brown eyes and his face looked a slight bit changed as well… but that could be from the fact that the Marty that Doc knew was depressed and tired from a long inter-dimensional journey. Still, the change in height and eye colour made Doc immediately know that he was not making a mistake because of exhaustion – Marty really looked slightly different.

"What's the matter?" his alternate friend said, eyeing him with some curiosity as he'd been watching the inventor's astonishment at his appearance with interest. "Why are you looking at me like that?" He paused for a second. "What are you doing here, anyway? Weren't you just leaving to go out to visit your wife's family?" He chuckled at the latter part of his sentence, and shook his head making 'tsk' noises at himself for a reason that the inventor could not identify.

"Well, I'm not" Doc said, figuring that the explanation to that issue could probably wait a while. "I'm here, and I…" He paused, realising what his friend had said. "Wait a second… my wife's family? You mean, they're still around?" Clara certainly no longer had relatives around that they knew of, and as far as he was concerned, the odd family history of Susan Clayton that his counterparts had told him about meant the same for her. For Julia, he didn't really know, though. And that coupled with the fact that the house was in about the same condition, roughly, as his other self's from that reality, made the 'repeated visit' theory sound a lot more plausible all of a sudden.

His suspicions on that issue, however, were not confirmed, as Marty frowned, obviously a bit puzzled at the question – who could blame him, after all, one would not expect a friend ask questions about his wife for who knew how many years – and nodded, somewhat hesitant. "Um, yeah" he muttered. "The Baines family is still around, and quite sizable at that."

For a moment, the inventor thought he was going to have an abrupt heart attack. "The _WHAT _family?" He had to have heard this wrong… "Don't you mean… Clayton?"

Unfortunately for his mental health, Marty did not mean that. The teen frowned even more instead. "No, I meant the Baines family" he said, acting to the name of 'Clayton' as if it sounded quite foreign to him – with the potential exception of Clayton Ravine, of course. "You know that, Dad."

Doc's mind was abruptly filled with the astonishing truth of this dimension as all the information suddenly made sense. The state of the house, indicating that it had been bought somewhere in the mid- to late-sixties… Marty looking slightly different, taller than normal, and with brown eyes that resembled Doc's own too much for it to be a coincidence… a woman from the Baines family, which, in this scenario, had to be Marty's mother, Lorraine, as his alternate self's wife… it suddenly all made sense and came down on poor Doc all in one as he realised the only conclusion that this could lead to. In this dimension, things had changed drastically. This Marty was not a McFly. This Marty, this Marty…

_This Marty was his son. _

Hours earlier, Doc had been annoyed at his other self from the no-Marty world and Marty himself in the world where he'd been trapped in the '50s, who had both fainted and caused quite an annoyance when they had to be revived. Doc had mentally figured that 'he'd never do something like that'. Now, however, he had proven himself wrong.

Without even a 'Great Scott' to announce it, the inventor's mind went blank and everything went black in front of his eyes as, in front of a stunned Local Marty, he collapsed and fainted to the ground.

* * * *

Marty whistled a tune, as he wondered how Doc's plan would work out for real. It had, after all, been just an idea of the inventor. Who knew, it would end up taking more time than it was supposed to. Then again, who cared? The urge to go back home came up to him as he walked there, outside of the house, and he wondered whether Doc would be met first by his other self or whether Marty would get the honour and perhaps the annoyance of doing the introductions. He didn't know and didn't care either. For now, all he just wanted was to get things straight and that the local inventor would have the abilities to bring them home. It didn't matter to the teen who would meet Emmett first in that scenario. Either one would be good, as long as it would work.

The nineteen-year-old reached the back door where they had gone in through in the last world before 'Smart Marty world', walked over to it, and knocked. The door was open, he noticed that right away, but he preferred it not to walk in on the local version of Doc – who knew what he was doing, after all, and getting him a bit too surprised would not help them at all – so he waited instead, hoping that Emmett would show up soon.

Emmett did, in fact, and as the local showed up, Marty noticed to his surprise and amusement that his best friend's version for this world was wearing neat clothing, as if he was going to visit someone. He did not have much time to wonder about that, though, as Emmett frowned. "Marty?" he exclaimed, astonished. "What are you doing here? You were upstairs with the kids just a minute or two ago! I heard you come down the stairs to open the front door as the door bell rang!" He frowned. "You look a little different, too. What's wrong with you? Are you all right?"

That immediately gave Marty the satisfaction of the fact that Emmett would not be running into his other self right away (he could figure out easily who had rang the bell) and the knowledge that his other self and Emmett were at least friends, and the idea that Jules existed was also quite nice. Also, the fact that other Marty was around would make it easier for him to ease Emmett into the fact that he was being visited by people from another dimension and that he would meet his other self soon. The only thing potentially negative was the astonishment that Emmett had at his apparently unfamiliar appearances, but that could be taken care of when they got around to that. "Um, well, Doc," he started, "there's something I've got to tell you…"

Emmett's eyes widened. "Like why you're calling me 'Doc'?" he said, astonished. "What's the matter with you? You haven't made that mistake in years now!"

"Um, mistake?" Marty repeated, frowning. "What's wrong with me calling you 'Doc'? You should've told me if you didn't like the nickname…" He then got the urge to slap himself on the forehead. Maybe Emmett had done that and of course the visitor could not know, but the local Marty could. He looked back up, embarrassed.

Emmett just stared at his friend, apparently unsure of what to say. "Marty?" he finally said, speaking up. "You didn't use the time machine, did you?"

"Um, no" the teen responded, a bit astonished as how to Emmett could've guessed that. "Or actually, yes…" As Emmett frowned, he quickly said: "As a matter of fact, the whole thing is a bit more complicated than that." He smiled sheepishly. "Do you mind if I come in?"

Emmett looked at the teen. "Um… well…um…"

"DAD!!!!"

Emmett froze at the sound of Local Marty's voice, and stared at Visiting Marty with astonishment. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed, stunned. "What's going on here? Where are you from? _When_ are you from?"

Marty glanced at his friend's counterpart, wincing too much at Emmett's gaze to merely think about why George McFly, whom Local Marty was probably calling out to, was apparently around in the house now. "It's a complicated story, Doc" he finally said. "The thing is, though – Doc from our world had invented a new device that would allow one to travel through dimensions as well as through time, and installed it in a new time machine. However, it failed to work when we wanted to get home – causing us to get stuck hopping through dimensions."

Emmett's eyes narrowed. "Different dimensions" he whispered. "Really? I've considered something like that, sometimes, but converting the van into a time machine took up most of my time and money…"

"You converted your step van into a time machine?" Marty asked, stunned. Emmett nodded. "Why?"

Before his friend could answer that, Local Marty showed up, was just about to say something to Emmett, then turned and shrieked as he saw his other self. The teen just stared at Visiting Marty, face pale. "What's… what's going on here?" he muttered, astonished. "When are you from? Why are you here?"

"According to what he just told me, he's from another dimension" Emmett said, just as Visiting Marty noticed that his other self did, in fact, look different – taller, and with brown eyes. He wondered whether it was perhaps Marty Junior, coming to visit from the future. Still, there was something off with that reasoning. For some reason, Marty knew that it was not his son. He had no idea what could've caused the different appearances in that case, though – as his other self did look remarkably different.

To Visiting Marty's astonishment, Local Marty seemed to take the news that he was visited by another version of himself from another dimension reasonably well. He nodded, understanding. "Oh, yeah" he said. "You told me about that other dimensions thing. You mean that the other you built a machine to travel through dimensions?" He smirked. "That sounds pretty interesting, actually. Is he really different from me, from what you've observed?"

Emmett hesitated. "Well, yes, quite a bit actually" he said. "He's slightly smaller than you, as you can see, and he's got blue eyes." He paused for a second. "And…believe it or not… he calls me Doc."

Local Marty's eyes widened. "No way!" he muttered, astonished. "He really does?"

"Yes, I do!" Visiting Marty snapped, getting more than a little annoyed at his other self and Emmett excluding him from the conversation completely, and continuing to complain about his habit of calling Emmett 'Doc'. "So? What's wrong with that? It's a perfectly nice nickname, and I've used it for my Doc since a few weeks after we first met!"

Emmett nodded, understanding. "I see" he said. "I can understand you're a little annoyed at us excluding you from the conversation… the reasons for that will be apparent soon." He turned to his Marty. "So, now that this matter is – temporary – out of the way, why did you come over here?"

Local Marty blushed. "I had just seen another you faint in front of me" he said. "He acted so weird, and when he fainted, I knew it couldn't be you. That's why I called… my Dad." He eyed Visiting Marty nervously. "I suppose that was yours?" he finally said. "Your… Doc, I mean?"

"Yeah, it should be" Visiting Marty said. "We agreed to split up, and I'd take the back door, while he'd take the front. According to him, that would go faster." He shrugged. "If he fainted, then something must've gone wrong. Looks like Doc's plan backfired."

"I suppose that you revealed a little too much to him, then" Emmett said, thoughtfully. "He must've had a good reason for fainting like that." He shook his head, patting Marty on the back. "I have to say, I felt sorry for you when you called me…George like that. You obviously were shocked. I could hear from your voice that you were really disturbed by my other self fainting like that."

"And confused" Visiting Marty smirked. "I mean, when you shouted to Doc here, you called… him… _Dad…_"

Within just seconds, Marty's smirk changed into a look of astonishment and terror as everything suddenly clicked. Emmett had reacted a little too quick at Local Marty's exclamation for it to be not addressing him. And the fact that Marty's other self resembled Emmett a bit, not really too much, but significant enough for Marty to make the link, and the fact that Emmett had slipped up in his last line…

"Holy shit!" he hissed. "He _is _your Dad, isn't he?"

Local Marty and Emmett both blushed. "I suppose there is no need to deny it any longer" the nineteen-year-old said. "Yes, he is my father now… but let me assure you that things were different before I first travelled through time and messed up my parents' relationship."

"Your… your parents' relationship" Visiting Marty muttered. His eyes flew over to meet Emmett's. "You mean… you didn't marry… you wouldn't…"

"…marry Lorraine?" Emmett finished. "Yes, I did – to my great astonishment, actually. Marty, I'm not quite sure what happened, but in this world, George McFly met an untimely death in a car accident on June 15th, 1966." He paused for a moment, allowing a stunned Visiting Marty to process that thought. "I felt sorry for Lorraine and didn't want her to become as stupid as to marry Biff Tannen, who kept asking her that, and I wondered how Marty had changed this and why he'd still been all right when leaving 1955. I wanted to get answers, so I hung around with Lorraine a lot, more and more…" He blushed. "Well, you know what happens then. We realised that we were in love in the spring of 1967. With Lorraine in a bad financial situation, I eventually decided that she wouldn't manage this for long anymore, that she needed some help which I could give her, and proposed to her in late May, 1967. We got married on August 17th of the same year… it was the date my parents had married sixty years earlier, so Lorraine and I thought that it would be nice. Little less than ten months later, Marty was born."

Visiting Marty shook his head. "I can't believe this" he finally settled on. "I can't really see you and mom together… and you as my Dad… and the fact that my real Dad is dead." He looked up at Emmett. "Like I asked you before, can I come inside? I _definitely_ need to sit down now."

Emmett chuckled. "Yes, I can imagine that" he said. "Lorraine and I were planning to visit her sister Sally and her husband and kids today, but I suppose that can wait. We hadn't informed them of it, after all – it would be a simple surprise visit – so we can simply step out of it now. This goes first." He cleared the path to enable Visiting Marty to enter. "That said, please come in."

The teenager nodded, and followed Emmett and Local Marty into the house, in the meantime looking at the different way the house was set up. The table in the kitchen was longer, equipped to seat more people, and there were a lot more pictures of the kids around. As Marty entered the mostly familiar living room, the teen noticed a familiar photograph on the mantle. It was a picture of the local inventor's wedding day. Marty took an uneasy look at the coloured picture of his best friend and his mother holding hands, with Lorraine in a wedding dress and Emmett in appropriate clothing as well. He sighed, not really believing that this could really be true.

"It's weird, huh?"

Visiting Marty turned around to see his taller other self approach him, smiling. "Yeah," the local teen continued, "I thought it was odd myself when I first found out. I wasn't used to Doc being married, and it being to my Mom… but well, I adjusted. The fact that I got new memories helped a lot."

The visiting teen nodded with sympathy. "I see" he said, softly. "That must be odd. I just returned to a world where my folks were better off, not one where I had an entirely different father. I suppose that it took some adjustment for you, didn't it? Did you ever have the urge to go back and change the timeline?"

"In the beginning, I had" Local Marty admitted. "But I kind of liked having Doc as my Dad, and being slightly taller than before. Also, I felt happy for my best friend being married – even if it was to my mother – and of course, I didn't want to erase my new siblings. What kind of brother would I have been, if I wanted that. Plus, I wouldn't know where to start changing history…"

Visiting Marty stared at his other self. "Your new siblings?" he echoed.

"Yeah – oh yeah, I suppose you don't know that yet" Local Marty said. "I have, in fact, got six new siblings. The oldest is Marie – she's seventeen. You'll be surprised when you see her, she looks exactly like mom as a teen. Then, there's Jules and Verne, they're fourteen and twelve. They're out staying at a friend's house. And then, there's Stella, she's almost eleven, and Lorraine Junior, she's eight. Then, George is the so-called baby of the family… he's six years old. Named after Dad, you know. So, there's three boys and three girls besides me… and Dave and Linda, but they were adopted from Mom's first marriage. They live on their own… and besides, they should be off to their work now, anyway. Dave works at an office and Linda in a flower shop."

"I can't believe this" Visiting Marty said, shaking his head. "I have trouble seeing myself as Doc's adopted son already… let alone his biological son. I suppose that it could be possible, and it's not like Doc is a terrible person and all, but it's just… just weird." He looked up. "Speaking of which, how's _my_ Doc doing, anyway? Well, he's not my Doc as if he was my possession, but you know what I mean."

"Dad should be checking upon him right now" Local Marty said. "You know… Emmett." He chuckled, putting a hand on his other self's shoulder. "I know this must probably be weird for you, but it's weird for me too… the thought that Dad… my original world's Dad… is still alive in your world…" Visiting Marty figured his counterpart was on the verge of crying. "How is he doing, anyway? I know that, if he'd been alive, he would've been fifty yesterday…"

"Yeah, that's right" Visiting Marty agreed. "Well… I suppose he's doing all right. Dad's pretty much got a nice life now – he's a published science-fiction author. I've got a truck – you know, that one we both saw before going back in time."

"Oh, that truck" Local Marty said, understanding. "Dad bought it for me last year. I suppose that inventing a time machine or being a science-fiction author makes for different finances. Mom and Dad both work, by the way – and Dave and Linda do things to support the family as well. We're having a pretty good life, but sometimes, I wish that we had a smaller family. I'm glad I'm not the youngest anymore, but a smaller family would've been nicer when you think of things you want to buy. At least none of the kids that know have been tempted to travel through time and buy something from the future to help us."

"What kids know, then?" Visiting Marty asked, somewhat curious.

"Just a few" Local Marty said. "Just Marie, Jules and I. Dad is considering to tell Verne as well, but he wants to keep the secret to as few people as possible. And Mom also knows, but that was pretty much unavoidable… oh, there she is right now."

Visiting Marty watched with amazement as the alternate version of his mother and Emmett carried the unconscious Doc to the couch. Alternate Lorraine looked pretty similar, however she did look slightly younger – Marty figured that Emmett had probably taken his wife in to have some rejuvenation jobs. Instead of being in her forties, Lorraine looked as if she was in her mid-thirties, and looked healthy and happy. However the weight of her alternate husband had to be annoying her, she had a smile on her face until she set Doc down on the couch and really noticed Visiting Marty for the first time.

"This is incredible!" Lorraine exclaimed, looking at her alternate son. "You look so similar to our son… yet, I can see that you resemble 'Calvin Klein' more. It's so amazing to think about this. Actual different dimensions…"

"Yeah, I understand" Visiting Marty agreed. "I thought it was kind of odd as well. I wasn't really expecting Doc to drag me off on a wild ride through dimensions when I went to his house… well, two days ago now." He shook his head, looking at his unconscious friend. "This has to be one of the weirdest universe up until now. In the original timeline, I did sometimes see Doc as kind of my alternate father figure, and to be honest, I think I would've preferred him – Dad wasn't really bad, but Doc was nicer. In the new timeline, I had that a lot less… so I wasn't really expecting it when I arrived here and found out that another version of me actually is Doc's biological son." He eyed Local Marty nervously. "I suppose that Doc had a good right to faint when he did."

"Yeah, definitely" Local Marty agreed. "With the stunning things one sees when time travelling, I think that as a time traveller, you've got the right to faint more than… well, than ordinary people." He looked at his alternate self, curiously. "What's your life like, anyway? With original Dad being alive and all?" He shook his head. "I'm not really used to calling him 'Dad' anymore, you know. Doc has really become my Dad now." To illustrate, he walked up to his new biological father, and hugged Emmett.

Visiting Marty smiled, sitting down. "I suppose that's only natural" he said. Looking at Lorraine, he added: "I suppose that must've been quite hard for Emmett and you… seeing your son leave one day, and have one with a different father come in his place."

"Yes, that wasn't the easiest part of this whole thing" Emmett admitted. "Even though I have to say that Marty adjusted rather well. If he had gotten Biff for his father, for instance, I think he might have reacted different from how he did in our 1985."

"Don't even voice that thought" Lorraine said, shuddering. "The mere thought of being married to Biff gives me the creeps. I think I would've even preferred marrying you over Biff in 1955 when I was still a teenager and you a middle-aged scientist, let alone now or in '67."

"Sorry, honey" Emmett said, putting an arm around Lorraine's shoulders. "I can imagine that such a thought would horrify you."

"Not to add to the horror," Visiting Marty said, a bit insecure, "but that thought hits close to home. We actually had to see a reality like that – one in which Biff was married to my mom. Dad had been killed in March of '73, you were committed, and the Courthouse was a Pleasure Paradise. Dave was a bum, Linda a… well, a prostitute, I guess… and I was…"

Lorraine had gone pale. "Please" she interrupted. "Don't… don't tell more. I think I'm getting the gist of it by now. You don't need to go into any more of these horrifying details." She shivered. "Correction to what I just said – I'm_ certain_ I would've preferred you over Biff, Emmett, at _any_ time."

Emmett smiled, sitting down as Lorraine and Local Marty did the same. "Well, thank you" he said. "I'm sure that you would've had a relatively nice life in the other world, the world where Marty here is from, as well, though. I mean, when George was shot, he was on his way to becoming a confident science-fiction author. Now, um, other Marty, could you tell us a little about your life right now? If you really do have a problem with your time machine, as you just said, then I think that I could better have a look at it when my other self is awake… and I'm really curious about what your life is like, to be honest."

"Yeah, I have to admit that I'm kind of curious to what happened to you and my other self as well" Visiting Marty admitted. "All right – in our world, nothing happened in June of 1966. Dad survived as there was no accident, and got Mom pregnant with me in September of 1967. In the following June – June 9th, to be exact – I was born."

"That was the same with me" Local Marty said, nodding. "June 9th, 1968."

"Yeah, I figured that" the visitor said. "Anyway, on March 15, 1973, the same date Dad was killed in that alternate world, he received an award for his writings and was honoured with that – it was a really big day for him. On October twenty-sixth of '75, I met Doc and we became good friends soon. The original test of the time machine went on as usual, with Doc being shot – he wore a bullet-proof vest, though – and me escaping to '55. The Libyans crashed into a phone booth, and that same night, Doc headed off to the future. When I woke up the following morning, I initially thought it had been all a dream." He smirked. "I definitely knew that couldn't be the case once I had seen Dave and Linda wearing suits, the house looking as if it was brand new and with a modern interior, and Mom and Dad just returning from playing tennis. Dad showed me that Biff now worked for us – he had an auto detailing service and was just cleaning the car, with Dad reminding him to put on the second coat, which Biff had tried to cheat us out of."

"Yeah, that's the same" Emmett agreed. "Even in our world, I often have to 'remind' Biff to not forget the second coat of wax – and if I order just one coat, he occasionally waxes just part of the car. Doesn't help that he considers me a nutcase, of course, and that I'm married to the woman that he wanted to have for the past thirty years… little over thirty, actually. He occasionally makes rude comments about me not deserving Lorraine." He sighed, Visiting Marty clearly seeing that Emmett felt hurt. "If there was another car waxing service around in the near proximity, I'd go there right away. Ordering Biff to wax the car is often a job that is delayed to the latest moment possible, because I'm mostly not really looking forwards to having to hear another load of complaints again, and insults like how the town would be much better off if I had never been born."

Visiting Marty gasped. "Are you serious?" he asked. "I don't think our Biff is ever that rude to you or to Dad, especially not to Dad – he is one of Biff's best customers. I suppose it must be because you combine Biff's greatest dislikes in Hill Valley – the man who married the woman he wanted, and the man who is supposedly a complete nutcase." He sighed. "Doc, I'm not sure whether you believe him or not – but don't. Don't you just dare to think that you're a nutcase. You're a great scientist, and I bet there's a lot of people who think the same. Just because you have never really invented something that you could show off to the public doesn't mean that you're a bad inventor. Remember what you've always told me whenever I was in trouble – well, I'm not sure whether you still do that now, but in the original timeline, you definitely did – that if you put your mind to it…"

"…you can accomplish anything" Emmett said, miserably. "I know. But sometimes, I do feel depressed, and then even I doubt the truth in those words."

"Well, it is true" Lorraine said, patting Emmett on the back. "You shouldn't care about what Biff says. We all know that what he says is silly and that he's just being his bitter old self. You taught me that I should never give up, and you should do the same. If Biff really thinks that this is going to persuade me to marry him, he's completely wrong. I'm your wife and I will remain your wife, no matter how much Biff complains about it. That is one thing that I think I should ensure you of."

Emmett looked at her. "Really?"

"Certainly" Lorraine responded. "Even though I might've doubted my feelings twenty-one years ago, I'm sure of them now. I love you, Emmett Brown."

Emmett blushed, and smiled at his wife. "And I love you, Lorraine Baines" he whispered back.

The Marty's exchanged glances, with Local Marty shaking his head. "No matter how many times I've seen them do this by now, it'll always remain odd" he said, as Lorraine and Emmett started kissing. "I never expected to see Doc and Mom together when I was still in the old timeline… but I'm glad it happened. I do sometimes miss my old Dad, but my new Dad is every bit of the replacement I could've wished for and then some." He looked over at Emmett, and smiled.

"Yeah, I suppose I can understand that" his counterpart agreed. "I think that if Dad had ended up being killed, Doc would've been a great replacement. Even though we don't really consider each other as father and son… well, not too much anyway… we're still pretty close friends. I risked my life for his in the Old West, and I'd do the same thing again right away if I had to."

Emmett blushed, releasing Lorraine and returning to his regular position again. "Thanks, I suppose" he said. "To both of you… even though our visitor's comment was meant to be about his version of me, not about me."

"Yeah, it's confusing, isn't it?" Visiting Marty chuckled. "I was having trouble with that myself. I suppose that I should be used to this by now, but I'm not. It's been… what, fifty hours so far? Well, I'm kind of used to seeing myself by now, but it'll probably remain confusing for a while how to call my other self and how to talk about Doc and his local self… you, in this case… as if they are different persons."

"It's odd, most definitely" Lorraine said. "I'm sure that I wouldn't really like experiencing that." She looked up to Marty. "So… go on with your tale. What all happened in your life after that? I believe that the night you time travelled was the night before you were going to the lake in our world."

"Yeah, that remained the same" Visiting Marty said. "In the original world, Dad was okay with it… well, that was because he didn't want me to be mad at him… but you disapproved of it, so I wanted to go in secret, telling you I was going camping with the guys. I intended to take the family car, but Biff Tannen wrecked it." He looked up at Local Marty, who gave a sincere nod to indicate that this was still the same. "In the new timeline, Dad still didn't really have a clear opinion on it – he was okay with it, though – and you approved fully, as Jennifer was 'such a sweet girl', as you put it." He smirked. "It's odd, isn't it? How you made a complete turn-around with that…"

"Yes, that was the same here" Emmett said. "In our world, both Lorraine and I were okay with you and Jennifer going to the lake, as we saw nothing wrong in it and hoped that it would improve your relationship to spend a night together somewhere, getting your thoughts sorted, enjoying the beauty of the stars, and be together. You'd been enthusiastic about it for weeks before the event itself, completely confusing little George and annoying the rest of your siblings." He smirked at the memory. "But yes, both of us were okay with it. So that was a thing that went consistent in our worlds."

"Well, I'm sure that the next thing didn't" Visiting Marty commented. "I was just reuniting with Jennifer outside the house, as you came up to us from the future, telling us to come back with you – back to the future. Next thing we knew, we were in the year 2015, as something was apparently wrong with Marty Junior."

"Yes, that's certainly different" Emmett agreed. "In our world, I decided not to take Marty to the future, nor go to the future right away, after noticing how confused Marty was when I dropped him off home. I figured that, after thirty years, a day more or less wouldn't matter too much. Eventually, I went to the future the next week, on Friday evening of November first, 1985, along with Lorraine and Marty. It was a very interesting journey and I remember how amazed I was by the technology of the future."

Visiting Marty smiled. "You know, I think that's what I would've liked Doc to do" he said. "I was just getting back from my first time trip when he dragged me off. The future would've been a lot more enjoyable if he'd just let me relax and spend that night at the lake as we planned to do."

"Well, I suppose that my counterpart did have his reasons" Emmett said. "I mean, the main reason that I waited was because you were my son and I felt sorry for you. If you were not my alternate self's son – which you weren't – it explains a little of his different reaction. Also, he didn't know that there was going to be anything different in your life between the timelines. That was why he went off right away, and whatever he saw must've needed fixing as soon as it could."

"Yeah, I suppose so" Visiting Marty said. "Doc always says that he wanted to learn me the lesson I needed in order to say 'no' to Needles in the automobile accident… I was apparently going to be challenged by Needles into a car racing incident on the next day. Apparently, the cause of that all was because Needles called me a chicken, and I reacted to that. Doc wanted to take my reaction to that word away, and apparently, to him, the best way to do that was to let me fix what was wrong with my son."

"Yes, I can kind of see how he reasoned" Emmett said, thoughtfully. "I might've done the same thing, if anything like that ever happened." He looked up, bemused. "I don't think I've ever heard my Marty react to being called 'chicken', though."

"Yeah, I never really had a problem with that" Local Marty said. "Neither in the old timeline or in the new one. I just ignored people who called me that. Why, did you…"

"Yes, I did" Visiting Marty said, with a sigh. "You're glad not to have gone through that. It was a personality trait that I got in the new timeline and that was very hard to lose. I kept reacting to anyone calling me a chicken. Almost got myself killed in the Old West." He smiled at the gasps that followed from the locals, as Emmett and Lorraine went pale. "Yeah, that wasn't my nicest moment either. I managed to avoid it, though – as I realised that it didn't matter just in time. I guess that without that problem, the trip to the future and all that followed on it wasn't really necessary."

"If one can speak of necessities when the events are not intended to be so" Emmett corrected. He smiled at his other self's friend. "Always try to use the correct phrases."

"Yeah, you're probably right" Visiting Marty said, with a shrug. "You're the Doc, Doc." He looked at his other self. "I suppose you never say that now… or do you say 'you're the Doc, Dad?"

"Yes, that's correct" Local Marty confirmed. "He's my Dad now, for all intents and purposes, and well…I don't really want it to be otherwise anymore. I liked my old Dad, he wasn't a bad guy, but Doc is really a good Dad for me now. Even Mom doesn't want to stop Dad's death anymore, even though she'd felt tempted to do that at first."

"He's right" Lorraine admitted, blushing. "It was back in the summer of 1985… Emmett had been avoiding me for some time at that point, as our relationship was a slight bit strained because Emmett didn't want to tell me who 'Calvin Klein' was. As Marty resembled Calvin Klein closer and closer… not as much as you, of course, but still a lot… Emmett's cover story of Calvin being his nephew and later that of his best friend's son began to crumble. On June 9th, it was Marty's birthday and Emmett was off with him to celebrate. I was cleaning the house and the lab and by accident uncovered a book saying 'Journal of Emmett Brown, 1950-1959'. I was kind of curious, and, with the whole Calvin Klein thing as an issue between us, I decided to check out November 1955. Imagine my surprise as Emmett detailed how 'a boy from the future' whose parents were Lorraine Baines and George McFly had come back in time from October 1985!"

"I'm sure that you were surprised" Visiting Marty said. "Did you believe it right away?"

"I had to" Lorraine said. "I was initially sceptical, but as I read on in the book, I found more and more references to that, and I didn't really believe Emmett would've done all that work just to fool me. Then, as I went to look for anything that could've hidden the time machine that should've been almost finished, Emmett came home and as Marty had gone up to his room I confronted my husband with it. Emmett denied it at first, but as I pressed on he eventually admitted that, yes, he had almost finished a time machine, and went with me into the basement where he revealed the secret entrance to the cellar. I couldn't believe that Emmett had kept this hidden from me, his own wife, for eighteen years, so I was both amazed and angry, and as I realised what this meant and I was still a little angry, I suggested to Emmett…" …her face turned reddish at that… "…that if he wasn't going to tell his wife any secrets he had anyway, I might as well go back in time and save George's life."

"Logically, I was furious" Emmett said. "I couldn't believe that Lorraine had proposed this and pointed the risks out to her – the paradox, the question of how, and whether she wanted to abandon an eighteen-year-old marriage… and at least six of her kids." He saddened. "The last part hurt me the most. To think that she wanted to kill her kids and abandon me like that."

Visiting Marty's jaw dropped. He looked at Lorraine in astonishment. "You… you wouldn't" he managed to mutter.

"No, I wouldn't and I haven't" Lorraine agreed. "I hadn't yet thought of the points that Emmett presented to me and as soon as I realised what it meant I immediately abandoned all thoughts of going through with it and actually saving George's life. I was sad for a brief period after that, as I really couldn't stand the thought that George was still going to die, but eventually, Emmett cheered me up." She looked lovingly at her husband.

"I think that the whole fight we had about this actually strengthened our relationship" Emmett said, thoughtfully. "We were very close in the period after that, and I was relieved to finally have the secret out in the open – well, except for the kids of course. It felt very good to have someone to share my secret with, and Lorraine was a good help in the things that followed. Of course, she didn't exactly agree with the deal I had to make with the Libyan terrorists."

"I was mad at him for some time about that, yes" Lorraine admitted. "I shouted at him and asked him whether he wanted himself killed. I knew he was going to wear the bullet-proof vest, but I was worried it wasn't enough. In mid-October of 1985 I woke up from nightmares of the terrorists showing up and killing Emmett while I had to watch and couldn't do anything about it. Once again, Emmett greatly supported me in getting over that… which once again gave me some prove that I had made the right choice for a husband."

Visiting Marty smiled. "What exactly happened to you, if I may ask?" he said, looking at both Emmett and Local Marty. "I mean, you were saying that on November first, you went to the future. What did you see? Did you see anything interesting?"

"As I said before – yes, I did" Emmett agreed. "The future was the most amazing thing I'd ever imagined… even though that was probably the case with you, too. Flying cars, fusion… when Marty and Lorraine weren't around, I looked up Marty's future as well. I won't tell any specifics, as they might be… surprising to you, but the future looked pretty good." Visiting Marty raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing, as Emmett continued. "Marty was in a happy life, with his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker… I don't remember if you mentioned her before, you told me so much by now, but is she still your girlfriend as well? It was in the original timeline for my Marty, but you never know…"

"Yes, it is" Visiting Marty responded. "That didn't change between the timelines… I might've gone nuts if I had to deal with a wholly different girlfriend after the timeline change. At least Doc and Jennifer stayed mostly the same… that was something positive after everyone else changed so drastically. And that all as the effect of just one week time travelling back just thirty years."

"That's the butterfly effect" Emmett commented. "Very small changes can have enormous results. We've seen it in 1955, and it could've been much worse. You managed to avoid erasing yourself from existence just narrowly, and the fact that you were still born at the same time could've easily changed." He pondered that thought. "On the other hand, there does seem to be some effect in place that keeps our changes mostly minimal… the chance you had of still being born on June ninth, especially in our timeline, was very, very small. Yet it happened. It's like there is, to contradict the butterfly effect, another effect within the space-time continuum… a so-called 'self-preservation effect', perhaps?"

"Could be" Visiting Marty allowed. "Yeah, when you think about it, it is pretty odd. Almost like I was meant to be born at that exact time and place." He looked over at his local self. "Well, the latter part could be inconsistent… where were you born?"

"Hill Valley Hospital" Local Marty responded.

"Same here" Visiting Marty said. "Weird, isn't it?"

Local Marty shrugged. "I've researched it a bit" he said. Half-smirking, he added: "Believe it or not, I've decided to become a scientist in the future."

Visiting Marty's jaw dropped. "No way!" he exclaimed. "You – I – we're musicians! You can't become a scientist!"

"I'm afraid so" Emmett said. "I've seen it in the future. He does become a scientist – a rather good one, at that. He helped me invent a few things. Didn't really see any specifics – no one should know too much about his destiny or that of anyone else, so I didn't look up too much – but yes, Marty becomes a scientist."

The teen shook his head. "That's odd" he muttered. "I can't really see myself as an inventor. I mean, I like to help Doc sometimes, but the idea that a supposedly normal version of me ends up being a scientist is just a little too far-out to me."

"What do you mean, 'a supposedly normal version'?" Local Marty asked, frowning.

"Smart Marty" his other self responded. "It's a really odd story – I suppose even you wouldn't really be able to grasp it. Apparently, there's some kind of other world, in which we're a scientist like Doc, while Doc is… well, less intelligent. That other me had invented his time machine and helped us out a lot… but it was very freaky. He talked all scientifically too, even more than Doc did in '55."

Local Marty's eyes widened. "No way" he muttered. "I might be planning to be an inventor now, but to actually talk like that and invent the time machine?" He shook his head. "Was he at least nice?"

"Sure" Marty said, nodding immediately. "He was a nice guy, but I couldn't help but be really freaked out whenever I saw him. I couldn't believe how smart I was. Doc seemed to take his end of the deal better, though, even though he should be the one horrified – after all, his counterpart wasn't the most intelligent. Local Doc… Emmett, as he didn't have a doctorate… was the owner of a horse ranch. Guess that followed out of his youth 'cowboy' obsession. The mansion still stood, as he'd never experimented with anything so it hadn't burned down. Apparently, my other self did come close to setting the whole place on fire once, back in 1982. Only quick thinking saved the house then."

"Quick thinking from my other self, I guess" Local Marty said, smirking a little.

Visiting Marty laughed. "Yes, I suppose so" he admitted. "So, anyway, to go back to our subject – what else did you experience in the future?"

"Besides looking around and gawking at everything, and having to chase after an over-excited Emmett every time we saw something that had future technology in it?" Lorraine asked, half-grinning. "Not too much. We had a nice time there, but there wasn't really too much to see besides the inventions. Not to mention Emmett never wants to tell us the details. I understand why he doesn't do it, and he's explained me hundreds of times why knowledge of the future is dangerous, but I can't help it. I guess I'm just too anxious to find out more that I can't wait for the event to arrive in the natural course of time."

"I can see that" Visiting Marty said. "I'm a lot like that, too. I've come to understand it, but the possibility to find out more can be very tempting sometimes. I guess that I'm pretty good at controlling myself regarding that, though, as I haven't found out one thing in the past three years, besides the things I got loose from Doc… which were mostly general, but still okay anyway."

"Well, since I'm Dad's son now, I've come to understand him a little more" Local Marty said, thoughtfully. "I know it's not good to know too much about your own destiny, and while I do have a temptation to look up my future sometimes, I never actually go through with it."

"As you shouldn't" Emmett said, giving his son a somewhat proud smile.

"Yeah, I know."

At that moment, the noise of footsteps on the stairs could be heard. "That must be Marie" Emmett said, not looking up. "She was busy with studying… guess she's ready now and coming down to ask when we're finally going to have lunch." He glanced over to the clock, which said 1:25 in the afternoon. "Not that I blame her, of course, as it is quite late already. Anyway, she'll probably be here soon."

"Is this the girl who looks so much like Mom as a teen?" Visiting Marty said, frowning.

"Yes, it is" Local Marty said. "You'd better brace yourself… and hope that neither you or she faint upon seeing each other."

The answer to that question was soon found, as a young girl who bore a stunning resemblance to young Lorraine Baines entered. "Dad, I'm finished, when are we going to…"

The seventeen-year-old stopped abruptly, staring back and forth between the two Marty's, then between Emmett and Doc, as the latter was still lying motionless on the couch. "Um… there better ought to be a very good explanation for this" she finally muttered.

"Oh, there is" Emmett said. "Marie…this is what happens when someone is confronted with a situation in which one meets people from another dimension which is, while in some parts the same, in other parts drastically different from our own."

"Another dimension?" Marie repeated. "Are you serious?"

"Is there any reason I wouldn't be?" Emmett countered.

"No… but I can't really believe it." Marie shook her head. "How did this happen? Did you end up doing something wrong with the time machine?"

"It's not my fault" Emmett said. "It's theirs. Well, it's not their fault, but they were the ones to dimension-hop. Apparently, at the moment, their time machine is not working anymore as it should… is it?"

"Yeah, you're right" Visiting Marty said with a sigh. "We've been hopping through quite a few universes already now, which could be rather exciting, but it's actually kind of tiring and it does depress me. I sure do hope that you can find a way to fix the time machine, Emmett, 'cause I wouldn't really like it to be stuck in here."

"I can understand that" Emmett agreed immediately. "Maybe it's about time to wake your version of me up, then. I mean, you've told me what you wanted to tell me, haven't you?"

"Yeah, that's right" Visiting Marty confirmed. He smiled a little. "Do you have any smelling salts around?"

Before Emmett could answer that question, Doc abruptly rolled to the other side. "Mar…ty…" he mumbled, still half-unconscious, but clearly having heard his best friend's voice.

"Talk about an amazing coincidence" Local Marty said, chuckling, as his other self went over to the inventor. "Doc?" Visiting Marty asked. "Doc? Can you hear me?"

"Marty…" Doc repeated, still unconscious. "Leave… me… alone…"

"Doc?" Visiting Marty said. "If you don't open your eyes right now, I'm going to leave you behind in this dimension." He wasn't really serious, but as they had been hopping through worlds for quite some time now, he was beginning to get a little annoyed. Doc not waking up didn't exactly fit in his picture of what was going to be done now, and if Emmett couldn't fix the time machine, Marty felt himself almost ready to leave his friend behind and simply go on himself, even though he knew he couldn't and shouldn't do that to his friend, and to himself, as the end results would not be good. Still, he did feel the urge to do so rising within him.

Luckily, he didn't have to do that. Marty's words had made some impact on Doc, who opened his eyes briefly before shutting them again. As the teen was about to urge his friend some more, Doc opened his eyes again, and this time they stayed open. "Marty?" he asked. "What are you doing here? What am I doing here? The last thing I remember is fainting as I heard…"

Within seconds, the inventor sat up, and stared at Emmett and Lorraine. "You _are_ with her!" he exclaimed. "Great Scott, so it wasn't a dream! I was kind of betting on that, actually…" He looked over at Local Marty. "Great Scott… are you really my other self's son?"

"Yes, I am" Local Marty confirmed. "And, um, sorry for scaring you like that, I really didn't know that I wasn't your child. I've never really experienced this whole dimension-travelling business before, you know."

"I suppose so" Doc nodded, understanding. "You did shock me, though. Marty and I are close friends, but seeing him as my son?" He looked over at his friend. "Well, it wouldn't be terrible, but it would certainly be odd."

"I suppose so" Emmett said. "I had to get used to it at first, too, when I realised that the baby that Lorraine had given birth to had to be Marty. But eventually, I got used to it, and both of us see each other as father and son now… even though Marty's new memories must've helped with that. In the original timeline, he was still the son of George McFly and Lorraine Baines, so that was quite an adjustment for him."

"I see" Doc said. "If you don't mind me asking, how did George die? I can't really see Lorraine divorcing him, to be honest…" He looked over at the woman in question, curiously.

"Yes, I wouldn't" Lorraine said, sadly. "He died on June 15th, 1966, just two months after Linda was born. I cried for days once I'd heard the news. Emmett seemed to be particularly upset, too… even though I didn't find out until much later that this was partly due to concerns that Marty would never exist now."

Emmett blushed. "Yes, I did have my worries about that, considering how the whole thing went back in November 1955" he admitted. "After all, with George dead, and my pictures of Marty still being around… even though I did eventually notice that Marty looked a little taller, but I chalked that up to my imagination… well, let's just say that I worried about the space-time continuum. Eventually, I figured out that my theory upon first seeing George in '55 was true, and that Marty had in fact been adopted."

"That wasn't a real kind comment, by the way" Local Marty said. "I mean, you knew what it was like to be like my Dad, as you were also not really liked by a lot of things. It sounded a little negative on my father, as if you didn't think he would be a good father."

"Well, I didn't mean that" Emmett protested. "I was referring to your personality, actually. When I saw how wimpy George was, and how easy he was pushed around, I just figured that it would be rather implausible that you, being the confident boy you were, could be the son of a guy like that. I was just formulating a theory, not actively insulting your father."

"I guess so" Local Marty muttered. "It did sound a little offensive, though."

"Sorry, son" Emmett apologized, patting Local Marty on the back. The teen smiled.

"Anyway, to get back to what you said earlier, I still can't really see that this actually worked out" Doc said, thoughtfully. "Even if Lorraine remained as the mother, you shouldn't really be able to be the father. You did provide different genes to Marty, different from the ones that he originally received from George. You should be able to get a child that resembled Marty a bit, but it couldn't be Marty. Theoretically, Marty should have vanished, erased from existence, either in 1955 at the dance or when he returned with the lightning bolt. It's theoretically impossible that he could still exist."

"That is true" Emmett admitted. "I was kind of confused about it myself, as I said before. I'm not really a biology person, though, so I wasn't be able to find a correct answer to the question. Maybe it's that self-preservation effect the space-time continuum seems to have?"

"Self-preservation effect?" Doc echoed.

"Marty – your Marty – and I talked about that a bit just a moment ago" Emmett said. "He agreed with me that it was rather odd how the continuum seems to have this strange ability to keep itself intact, even with changes happening that should be able to be fatal. I mean, if Marty had erased, a paradox should've occurred. You can't have Marty be around to erase himself while he doesn't exist. That might be why the space-time continuum somehow stopped Marty from being erased. On the other hand, if I'd send _my_ original Marty back, he could do the job of erasing his other self. He might still be as fascinated by George to follow him around…" He paused, thoughtfully. "Hmm. That's an interesting concept, to be honest. Could Marty have been able to not cause a paradox while he still erased himself in some way?"

"It is a plausibility" Doc agreed. "Let's get this schematic. First of all, we assume that Marty – original Marty, to be called Marty-A from now on – was in fact erased at the dance because the changes he caused would still get his parents to fall in love, but end up killing his father before he could be conceived. George and Lorraine might be slightly disturbed, and your younger self would be greatly worried, but let's just assume everything went the same and George was still killed and Lorraine still married you. The alternate Marty, Marty-B was born as son to you and Lorraine. He eventually went back in time on October twenty-sixth 1985 as his other self did. In our little scheme, he would manage to avoid the inevitable paradox just narrowly and not be replaced by Marty-A, as he's a different person, which is after all what this whole scenario is built around. Assuming that Marty-A is still there, let's just assume that Marty-B enters 1955 at a different point and…"

"I've got a potentially more plausible idea" Emmett interrupted. "Since Marty-A shall be erased anyway, and Marty-B enters at the same point, why shouldn't he replace Marty-A? In such a scenario, Marty-B should not feel anything, and go on with the things he did. Marty-B would go on with his travels, and still save George as George and cars seem to be a bad idea. Marty-B should still do the same thing, even though he might act differently once he realises that he is in fact Calvin Klein. For the purpose of this, let's just assume that he goes on to get George and Lorraine to fall in love, even though he's tempted to just unite the younger me and Lorraine right away. Anyway, as George and Lorraine have fallen in love, Marty-B's existence is ensured as the car accident will now happen and Lorraine will marry his father. He leaves 1985 through the lightning bolt at the clock tower and is not erased as his existence was not at stake, after all. So, in this final timeline, there is no Marty-A who ever existed in the first place, with Marty-B fully taking his place in everything, even in the journey back to 1955! That would've been a pretty nice scenario, to be honest, as since everything will remain pretty much the same, there will not be any problems in 1985 with adjustment to a new timeline, as he's from a similar timeline."

"That is a very interesting scenario," Doc responded, "but…"

He stopped as he noticed that he and Emmett were being laughed at by the Marty's. "…what?" Emmett finally said.

"Nothing" Visiting Marty said, chuckling. "You're just very funny together. It's really odd to see you and another version of you discuss time travel. Even though, from the things that I managed to catch, both of you have made some good points."

Doc nodded. "I suppose that it's about time to stop talking about this" he said, looking at Emmett. "I'd like to talk some more with you, but we do want to get home. Would you like to have a look at my time machine?" He looked around, his head stopping to move as he noticed Marie for the first time. "Um, and would you mind telling me who _that_ is?"

"'That', as you call it, is my daughter" Emmett responded. "Marie Emily Brown, born March first 1971. My second and Lorraine's fourth child."

Doc looked at Emmett with wide eyes. "You've got more kids?"

"Seven in total" Emmett confirmed. "So, yes, that does mean we've got a rather big household, but we're managing. At least it's better than I expected from myself years ago. I never thought I'd have any kids, let alone seven. And that's excluding Dave and Linda, Lorraine's kids from her first marriage. They have moved out now, but boy, it was busy when they were still around…"

"Seven kids?" Doc squeaked. "Great Scott! Do you mind me asking what their names are?"

Emmett smiled proudly. "They're Martin Eratosthenes – that's Marty here – Marie Emily, Jules Newton, Verne Socrates, Stella Anna, Lorraine Curie and George Einstein Brown" he replied.

Doc frowned. "Jules Newton and Verne Socrates?" he asked, amused.

"Yes" Emmett responded. "Why? Anything different with those names from how you know them?" He paused at that. "Um, sorry" he added, smiling sheepishly. "I forgot for a moment that you're probably not married. This is quite an adjustment for me, you know."

"I understand" Doc said. "But you don't have to feel sorry – I _am_ in fact married, to a woman named Clara Clayton… yes, of Clayton Ravine. Marty and I rescued her on a time trip gone wrong to the Old West. We've got three sons – Jules Eratosthenes, Verne Newton and Martin Socrates. I guess that Marty's appearance as a son as well moved back those names, so Jules would get Verne's middle name and Verne Martin's." He thought about that for a moment. "You know, I wonder whether we'll ever get a son whom we'll give the middle name 'Einstein' as well. I suppose that your 'George' idea might be a good first name for him, too. I'm still friends with George, after all, even though he and I aren't as close as Marty and I are or ever were."

Emmett nodded. "Your Marty told me about that Old West trip" he said. "Not about this miss Clayton of yours, though. Great Scott… this is amazing. I always thought that if I'd never married Lorraine, I would've remained a bachelor for the rest of my life, but I suppose I was wrong. The fact that you are married to someone else, and not only that, but you've got three kids with her too, proves that." He looked up at Doc. "What about the other universes you've already gone through? What was our marital status in those worlds?"

Doc started to count them off. "Let's see… in the first one, I was still married to Clara" he said. "In the second one, Marty had been trapped in the past, in 1955, and I was married to a woman named Julia Clayton, a relative of Clara's." He ignored Local Marty's gasp and went on. "The next one brought Clara back again, and in the one after that I was married to a young woman named Susan Clayton. She was, apparently, the daughter of Julia… it was kind of confusing. Anyway, in the next world, Clara was back, and the world after that, I was still single. The next world, I wasn't even there – it was Hell Valley, if you want to know – and the world after that was the world where Marty was smart and I was less intelligent. Knowing Marty, I take it he's told you all about that already?"

"Yes, he has" Emmett agreed. "So, three Clara's, one Julia, one Susan, and one single me so far?"

"That should be correct" Doc confirmed. "In the smart Marty world, I was married to a Jennifer Clayton who, as far as I'm concerned, does not exist in our world. The world after that was a really odd one where I was still single as well. The world after that one brought Susan back, and then there was this world, where it was Lorraine's turn." He recalled all of the women and counted them again. "So, three Clara's, two Susan's, one Julia, one Jennifer, one Lorraine, and two single me's. My own flexibility in women surprises me."

"I can understand that" Lorraine said. "You didn't seem too much of a women person to me when we first fell in love, but now I've heard this list…" She shook her head. "Emmett has told me a little about different universes, and given our odd relationship, I had realised that there could be a possibility of us never meeting, but I'd never actually considered that." She looked at Doc. "Would you mind showing me a picture of this Clara?"

"Oh, no, I wouldn't" Doc said, providing the object that had been asked for by handing it over to his alternate wife. "This is Clara."

"She's pretty" Emmett commented, looking at the picture that Lorraine was holding. "I can understand why you fell in love with her. But for me, Lorraine is my wife, and she'll always remain being that… so no thoughts about me going back to the Old West and rescuing this Clara, because I know you well enough to say that you thought that" he added, smiling at his wife.

Lorraine blushed. "Well, you can't really deny that this is an odd situation" she argued. "Not to boast, but I think I'm handling it rather well up until now – better than I expected, at least."

"Yes, that's right" Emmett agreed, taking the photograph from Lorraine and handing it back to his other self. "So, anyway, shall we go outside now? I do want to have a look at the time machine, to be honest, and I'm kind of curious what it's like in your worlds, actually…" He paused at that. "And I'd try to fix it, of course" he added, not wanting his counterpart to think that he'd forgotten _that _particular issue.

"Of course" Doc agreed. "Yes, I suppose it would be about time to go." He looked at Local Marty. "If you're the son of a scientist, I suppose that you might be interested in science as well" he said. "Do you want to come? You do know that it is probably a once-in-a-time chance to see a time machine from another universe. I'd be okay with it if you joined us in the time bus."

"I suppose I'd like to do that" Local Marty said, thoughtfully. "I'm planning to become an inventor too, you know."

Doc looked at him, surprised. "Serious?" he said, astonished.

The teen nodded. "Yes, I am" he said. "Dad sure managed to get me enthusiastic for this as a job choice. I do have some musical talents, but some with science as well, and… well." He shrugged. "I don't mind becoming a scientist. It sounds like a great job."

Doc gave Visiting Marty a satisfied smile, which the teen shrugged off. He didn't care what his other self wanted… he knew for sure that he'd become a musician. If Doc would like to try to convince him, he could go ahead and do that, he knew that he wouldn't be convinced anyway.

As the time travellers then headed out of the house, and up to the time machine, Marty felt a faint feeling of satisfaction as he saw the surprise on the face of his other self, and of Emmett's other self. At least, _he_ wasn't too surprised by seeing the time machine, as he'd seen it a lot of times before. He walked up to the time bus, which Doc opened on his classic way. Emmett and Local Marty were let in, and they examined the bus.

In the meantime, Visiting Marty sought out a chair in the back of the time bus. He sat down, and realised that he felt a little tired. Sure, it was just about 4 P.M., but he had got a long time travelling day behind him, and he felt like he should perhaps try to sleep for a while. Figuring that wasn't really an option either just yet, and feeling a little lazy, the teen finally decided to go read a book instead. He took one out of two that were inside the bus all the time, a scientific book about Doc's experiences when building the DeLorean time machine, and started to read. Maybe it would finally help him understand how the machine worked.

And while Local Marty and Emmett were busy at the front of the bus, Visiting Marty read the entire book from November fifth 1955 to October twenty-sixth 1985, and as he'd finished, it was an hour and a half later and he still didn't understand too much. Not really wanting to discourage himself, he decided to take the second, smaller book, the book about Doc's experiences when building the time train back in the Old West, from the day he decided to start with it until the day he finished. The moment he opened up the small book, he immediately found the start of the whole adventure:

_Tuesday, December 23rd, 1885/Monday, October 20th, 1986_

_Dear notebook, _

_Today, I made my first progress with the time machine that I am planning to build out of an 1880s vehicle. I spoke about it with Clara and we agreed that, while I initially thought that it would be 'fun', it is too dangerous to remain in the 1880s without a way to control our changes to time. I'm not entirely certain about this yet, but if I decide that building a new time machine is too dangerous, I can always quit, and in the meantime, it shall be a nice side-project. The progress I made is very nice, if I say so myself, because I did some inspections of my old notes for the DeLorean, and I got some books from the library which include information about steam power, and that combined with my knowledge about time travel should be able to provide good results a few years from now… maybe even a decade or more, I'm not entirely sure how long it would take if I'd fulfil it. Anyway, I did something today, and that's all. _

_Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown. _

Visiting Marty chuckled at the text. It was quite amusing how Doc thought about these things years before he'd actually finished the time machine. Also, it was amazing to think how, to Doc, writing these notes was over twelve years ago, while in fact it had been hundred-and-two. Shaking his head about the weirdness of time travel, he was about to go on with the book when Doc came walking over to him. Marty looked up at his friend. "Yeah?" he asked. "What's the matter?"

"My other self is finished with his work" Doc said, a depressed look obvious on his face. "He didn't find anything that he is currently able to fix, since he doesn't know too much about the DFSCUPCIF. Therefore, he has concluded that he won't be able to fix the time machine."

Marty looked over at his watch, which said 5:22 P.M. on April fourth, and then looked at the time circuits, who said the time was three-twenty-two in the afternoon. "He didn't?" he muttered. "I thought that he did have a lot of the same capabilities you do…"

"He does, but he hasn't gotten a chance to develop them" Doc responded. "Thanks to all his children, my other self hasn't gotten any farther than the basic DeLorean time machine and now his step van time machine. I've filled the Fusion reactor already, because I suppose that we'll have to leave without results… again." He sighed deep.

"I _am_ sorry, you know" Emmett said, looking over to him. "I tried my best, but when I know I can't fix something, it's best not to waste any more time on it. You'd better go on. I'm sorry for getting your hopes up."

"It's not your fault" Doc assured him. "I am just going through a temporal depression, that's all…" He sighed again. "I was hoping that everything would be all right this time. I guess that it's not. Well, we ought to find something someday… I just wish it wouldn't take this long."

"I know" Emmett said. "If there is anything I can do for you…"

"No, thank you" Doc said. "Marty and I should be going off now. We've hung around here long enough. Marty?"

"Um, all right" the teen said, shrugging. "If you want to leave, go ahead."

Emmett nodded, understanding, and, realising that more 'I'm sorry' phrases was exactly what his other self did not need right now, he exited the time bus. Doc looked after him, then closed the door and, as Marty came to sit closer to the front, he turned on the flying circuits and sat back as the time machine lifted up.

"That's too bad, isn't it?" Marty said, trying to cheer his friend up a little. "That it didn't work again."

Doc shot him a look. "Had you expected it to work?" he asked. "It hasn't in who knows how many universes now. We've been on this for days and it's only getting worse, probably. Who knows, the time machine might explode one day. I just…" He saddened. "It's been a few universes since I last saw Clara and I'd like to see her again. And if this trend is continuing, I'll never see her again."

"Doc…" Marty warned.

The inventor shut his pleas off, a depression changing into determination. "I want to go home, finally!" he exclaimed, obviously furious at the time bus itself. "I've got enough of this madness! A world where I'm a horse dealer! A world where one can eat plutonium! A world where we learned once again how much easier everything could've gone if we hadn't been so stupid in '55 and had in fact noticed Old Biff being there! A world where I'm your father! I'm sick of all these… these nutty worlds, and if we can't get this done the normal way, we'll just have to go to a place where we know people _will_ be able to help us, instead of chickening out because we're nervous that we won't encounter anyone we know. If no one can help us, we'll help ourselves!" He turned to the computer. "Destination Time: Wednesday, October 21st, 2015, 3:30 P.M.!"

"October twenty-first twenty-fifteen!" Marty exclaimed, stunned. "Three-thirty in the afternoon! Doc, that's just an hour before our other selves show up!"

"So?" the inventor commented. "We need some help, Marty, and we're not going to get it this way. If we need to take drastic measures, we'll have to do that."

Marty nodded, understanding. "I suppose" he muttered. "Are you sure it's safe?"

Doc nodded. "You have to remember, it's not our history we're disrupting after all" he said. "If everything goes wrong – which it most likely will – we'll end up in an alternate world in which we do not have any harm from changing the course of the events in 2015. Granted, with our luck it'll probably be an alternate world in which everything is still with 1980s technology, and there is, as I previously said, the risk that we're going to our home dimension and we'll have to go through a lot of trouble to fix what we're going to do there if we aren't careful – which we'll definitely try to be – but that's the risks we'll have to take. Those are risks I'm willing to take, too… and you? Are you willing to take them?"

"Yes, I think I am" Marty said, thoughtfully. "If it's really not our history… well, I suppose I kind of see your point. I don't want to disrupt our other selves' life, but if it's our only chance to get home soon, then we'll have to go to 2015. At least it will, even if it doesn't work, provide us a nice distraction from our normal pattern."

"Yes, that's at least a plus" Doc agreed. "Well, are you all set? Ready to go to 2015?" He looked at the teen, who nodded. "But before we go… sorry for shouting at you, Marty. I suppose I was getting a little too upset."

"It's okay, Doc" Marty said, smiling. "You had every bit of a right to be upset. But let's just go now, right? I can't wait to be in 2015 and finally get a chance to fix this mess."

"As can't I" Doc agreed. "As can't I." He sped up the time machine as it flew through the sky, and within moments, it hit eighty-eight, and broke through the dimensional barrier. Unbeknownst to the time travellers, though, the world it would now end up in was weirder than they could ever expect it to be.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: There are an awful lot of real life characters in this story. So, I don't own *counts* Doc Brown, Marty McFly, Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Thomas F. Wilson, Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Bttf 4444 and Flaming Trails. I also don't own the movies, but you knew that already. Any complains about characterization are fine, but try to bring them gently, okay?**

**Author's Note: **Real World chapter. Doc and Marty find something that is very surprising to them, and gives a new twist to the whole story.

**Chapter ****Twelve**

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

03:30 P.M.

Twelve miles west of

Grass Valley, California

As the time machine broke through the time barrier, Doc still carried with him that sense of relief that he'd brought along from the previous world – with this decision taken, everything would go fine now, and he would end up being rescued from all this hopping and returned home, to Clara and to his family. However, that hope was soon destroyed the moment after he'd landed into the new world.

The area that Hill Valley was supposed to be in, looked completely empty. There was absolutely nothing there – no houses, no roads, just fields. The inventor blinked a few times. "What's going on here?" he muttered.

Marty looked outside as well. "This is heavy!" he exclaimed. "What's the matter, Doc? Why is the whole town gone all of a sudden?"

"I don't know, Marty" Doc admitted, somewhat uncomfortable. "I suppose this means that in this world, Hill Valley is not inhabited. I have no idea what could be the cause, though – maybe there is a disease around and this area was therefore never settled? Maybe different cultures colonized the America's and Hill Valley was never settled at all? Who knows what could've happened. Anyway, there is a chance that neither of us exist here."

Apparently, that thought had come across Marty's mind as well, as he didn't seem to react too awkward to it. "So?" he asked. "What does that mean? That we should leave right away?"

"Not really" Doc said, thoughtfully. "We came here because of the future technology, after all. Perhaps we could use the technology here to fix the time machine on our own. It'd take a little longer, but if this place has enough technology around to supply us with a nice amount, which would enable us to build the time machine, I don't think that it would matter."

"I suppose you're right" Marty said. "I wouldn't really like staying in a hotel room or something like that, though. As much as it unnerves me, the fact that the previous dimensions all had versions of you with enough place for us makes this world look a little weirder to me." He paused. "Do you think we still exist here somewhere? In another city, perhaps? One nearby?"

"It could be" Doc considered. "Maybe you're right and we should indeed check that option out, first. I'm not really too keen on living on our own for who knows how long either." He looked at the map. "Let's see… let's make our destination be Grass Valley. It's close to Hill Valley, after all, and while I'm not sure if we would settle there, I'm certain that it should enable us to exploit a reasonable possibility." He paused. "Well, at least our 'disrupting with the day's event' worries won't have to be very big now, unless the same thing is happening in Grass Valley right now."

"You're the Doc, Doc" Marty answered. "Let's just go. We'll see what happens when we'll get there."

"That is not really a good approach when seen from a scientist's perspective, Marty" Doc said. "I thought that you knew that when you're planning something, you should have proper preparation for it. We don't want to fly ourselves into something we don't know."

Marty shrugged. "You can go ahead and have a look at the map for all I care" he said. "I don't mind. Let's just go now, okay?"

"Yes, that would be the right thing, probably" Doc agreed. He turned on the accelerator, and started to fly the time machine through the skies of Hill Valley, or where Hill Valley should've been.

And as the inventor studied the map, the time machine flew towards the city of Grass Valley. Marty leaned back in his seat, and that gave Doc time to think. How long would they be going on like this? Would they even find his local self here? What if there was no Hill Valley because there was no one around? And if there were people around, what kind of world would they discover? A nice one? Or a world right out of a tale containing horror elements?

As he was still thinking that, the time machine flew on, and after about ten minutes, the machine arrived in the proximity of Grass Valley. After noticing to his relief that people were still around, the inventor flew the bus down, and parked it in the local woods.

"Why are you putting the bus here?" Marty asked, surprised.

"Why not?" Doc responded, shrugging. "I suppose that there is not really a better place to put it in. I don't know one, at least… and we have to put the bus somewhere. We don't want to face anyone being surprised at us flying a bus and us attracting attention that way."

"We're in two-thousand-fifteen" Marty pointed out.

"That's true" his best friend agreed. "However, while in our world, flying cars are indeed very common in the 2010s, in this world, they might not be. I've looked around a little and I haven't seen a single other flying car yet. Have you?"

"Um, no" Marty muttered. "Maybe it's one of those 'save the environment days'?"

"Possibly, but not very likely, especially seeing as work on environment-saving fusion energy is making major breakthroughs by 2015" Doc responded. "I have a strong feeling that this was caused by other reasons. Like no flying cars being invented at all."

Marty blinked. "That's… odd" he muttered. "No odder than Hill Valley not existing, I guess, but… well, I'm used to the hoverboard being a part of the future, and that includes flying cars. Have you got any idea why this could be?"

"No" Doc replied. "As I clarified before, it's just a theory of mine, and I'm absolutely sure that I'm not certain about this… as stupid as that might sound. For now, we should just leave the machine and try to go up town to see what the madness is about."

"Good point" Marty admitted, getting up from his seat and walking after Doc as the inventor exited the time bus, and locked it. He then looked ahead to the road near them. "Well…" he muttered. "I think that the town should be no more than five minutes walking from here. I made sure to park the bus on a place close to it, so we should be able to solve this mystery soon."

"Good" Marty muttered.

Doc realised that Marty was probably in a depressive mood again, like the one he'd just been in himself, and started walking to avoid an endless conversation with the teen, which he wasn't exactly in the mood for now. He decided to focus on this odd mystery instead. His scientific curiosity had risen and he had began to wonder. Why was this all changed? What could be the reason for the sudden disappearance of Hill Valley? He now knew that Grass Valley existed and that there were still relatively normal-looking humans around. He supposed that this could be just a minor change, instead of the big one he'd been fearing. Then again, he didn't know.

Deciding to ignore his worries for a moment, the inventor focused on the wildlife around him instead. Grass Valley was a nice little town, slightly smaller than Hill Valley, and it was looking pretty interesting today. He might have enjoyed this little break if he wasn't so obsessed with the whole thing going on.

As the inventor walked into the main road of Grass Valley, he remained in thoughts. He'd probably discussed a dozen of possibilities for how this world had come to be inside his head by the time Marty tapped him on his shoulders.

"What's the matter?" the scientist asked.

"Take a look at them" Marty said, pointing at some people on the other side of the street. "They're _staring _at us."

Doc looked over, and noticed that the locals were indeed looking at them somewhat awkward. The scientist winced. He didn't have _too_ much of a reputation as a crackpot, but apparently those who were convinced he was a nutcase had apparently told some citizens of Grass Valley about how nuts Doc Brown was. "Oh, great…" he muttered under his breath.

"What?" Marty asked.

"Never mind" his friend assured him. "Let's just go in there." He pointed over towards a phone cell. "We should probably be able to find a phone book there."

The teen shrugged, and walked after Doc, who, after going in, indeed found a phone book in the cell. However, as he flipped through the pages, he had the unpleasant experience of not being able to find anything. In Grass Valley, there was no Emmett Lathrop Brown or a Martin Seamus McFly around, and while there was a J. Parker around, the job the book gave her – captain of a ship in the US navy – made sure that this miss or Mr. or Mrs. Parker was not Jennifer. He sighed, slamming the book shut. While this did make him feel happier by realising that the strange looks were probably not meant to be for his alternate self, who was not there after all, it didn't exactly make him cheer up a lot. This did, after all, throw his hopes for finding his other self the easy way out of the window.

"We're not there?" Marty asked, having waited outside and just having to look at the inventor's face in order to be able to guess what had happened. "Have you got any idea why?"

"Nope" Doc responded, sighing. "I guess that there should be some reason for it, but I haven't been able to find it. Let's go into that café in order to get something to drink, and we can figure out what to do next afterwards."

Marty shrugged. "That's fine with me" he said. "I'd prefer to leave right away, but knowing you, you'd probably like to hang around here for a while… and if I have to stay here, I'd prefer to do it with some drinks so I can at least enjoy myself a little with that."

Doc nodded, as they both walked inside. Once they'd arrived, Doc immediately noticed they were getting those stares again… but not too much, the café seemed to be awfully empty. Deciding to ignore it – it wasn't like he had never received any weird looks in his life before after all – he walked up to the counter, where, to his surprise, a human was standing and not the video screens he expected to see. "Good afternoon" he said, politely, deciding to ignore that particular fact. "Have you got any hot chocolate milk?"

The café owner just stared at him, wide-eyed, but an assistant of his immediately nodded. "Yes, we do, sir" he said, politely. "We understand you're probably in a hurry as you wouldn't want to miss the big event, so we'll make it for you as soon as we can."

"The big event?" Doc repeated before he could stop himself.

The man looked at him, a bit awkward. "Ah, yes" he said. "You know – the festival that is going to happen a mile away from here, remember? I thought that you and Mr. Fox would attend…"

Doc smiled, understanding as he'd heard the latter words. So that was why everyone was staring at them so odd. "He's not Michael J. Fox" he said, pointing at Marty. "I know he looks a lot like him, but he's really a different person. And, if you happened to think that because I do resemble him a little – no, I'm not Christopher Lloyd."

The assistant nodded, understanding, and the café owner also came to life again. "Ah" he said, understanding. "I suppose that, with all that is going on today, I thought that you were Mr. Lloyd and Mr. Fox, even though your friend does look a lot younger than the latter." He turned back to his equipment. "Hot chocolate, you said?"

"Yes, please" Doc said, remaining polite even though he was feeling curious about this festival by now. "Two, if you have them."

"We certainly do, sir" the man said. "Just a moment." He walked over to a machine of some sort, and put some cups underneath it. After a few seconds, chocolate milk came out of it, and the man handed the cups over to Doc, who, after paying, walked over to a table close to the window where Marty had sat down.

"What was going on there?" Marty asked, taking his cup of chocolate milk from Doc. "You seemed to be having an entire conversation with those guys."

"Yeah, right" Doc agreed, sitting down. "It was kind of awkward, yes… those people apparently thought that we were Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox, so that was why they were looking at us in such a strange way. I explained that we weren't."

"You shouldn't have done that" Marty said, jokingly. "We might've gotten the chocolate milk for free then."

"Marty!" Doc said, although he couldn't prevent a smile from forming on his face. "But, yes, I suppose you're right. Anyway, free chocolate milk or not, let's just drink it, okay? Then we can formulate our plan about what to do next."

"Yeah" Marty said. "Haven't you thought of anything yet?"

"No" Doc admitted. "Since my other self is not in the phone book, we could assume that he does not live around here, and we can assume the same for your other self. The question that we could rise in this situation is the one of where we do live, but I have no idea on how to find the answer to that particular question. Since I don't have an other self around here anywhere that we can contact, I think that the wisest would be to go to a local electronics store, see what we can buy for the time bus, and then leave this dimension."

"Yeah, you're probably right" Marty said, drinking his chocolate milk. "What was that business about that great event that we were supposed to attend? I overheard a little from when you were talking…"

"Oh yes, that" Doc said. "I haven't really heard too much about it, besides the fact that Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd are supposed to attend it and that it's a festival a mile out of town. We could have a look at it, perhaps… who knows, we might even spot them. The actors, I mean."

Marty frowned. "I thought we were going to leave after getting electronic parts?" he asked, surprised. "I'm not sure if hanging around here and visiting local parties is such a good idea…"

"You're right" Doc admitted. "It does sound a little unusual, but I'm kind of curious to be honest with you. We could always have a quick look, then go. If it's just a mile out of town, we'll be able to go there easy with the time bus."

"Yeah, that's probably the case" Marty said, nodding. "Maybe you should ask where exactly it is first, then. I'm not really in the mood to search the whole area that is one mile away from here. That's… how many miles?"

"Approximately 3.14 miles" Doc prompted. "Yes, I can understand that." He looked down at his chocolate, took a large gulp and swallowed the rest of his drink, then stood up. "Just a moment… I'll be back right away."

Marty shrugged, and Doc walked back to the counter. "Excuse me?" he asked the owner's assistant, who was just making some chocolate for another customer. "Would you mind telling me where exactly that festival that you talked about is held?"

The waiter looked up at the inventor. "Um, just follow this road to the west" he said, a little uneasy. "It's about a mile from here, as we said, and it's in the fields." He smirked, then sighed wistfully. "I wish I could go. I've been a fan of the movies since I was just a little boy, you know. The Future Festival does seem to be a dream coming true, and the fact that I can't attend most of the festivities because of my work here is rather sad."

"I understand" Doc said, nodding. "Anyway, we should go." He walked over to his friend. "Come on, Marty… it's time to go check out that festival."

"Marty?" the waiter repeated, slightly amused.

Doc looked around, confused. "Um, yes" he said. "That's his name. Marty McFly."

The waiter laughed. "Marty McFly?" he repeated. "Serious? Or are you trying to fool me here? As far as I'm concerned, McFly isn't even a real name."

While Doc started speculating whether this could be the answer to their mystery – they couldn't find a McFly in the phone book if that name didn't exist, after all – Marty felt offended. "Hey!" he exclaimed, stepping forwards. "I'm not insulting your name either, am I?"

The waiter seemed to be sorry. "I apologise" he said. "I was just thinking you just used that name for today. I didn't know it was your real name." He chuckled. "That must've gotten you some weird looks in your life, right?"

Marty glanced at Doc and back, a bit uneasy. "Um…I suppose" he lied. Then softer, he added: "Come on, Doc, let's go."

This time, the waiter didn't say anything, and within moments, the time travellers had exited the café, and after an uneventful trip to the electronics store, which couldn't provide any of the supplies that they needed, they were heading back to the time bus. Neither of them said a word, instead they just walked there, and as they arrived at the bus, Doc simply went inside, turned the engine on, and moved the bus back onto the road, driving through the streets and up to this festival that the waiter had been talking about so eagerly.

The trip didn't take all too long, as it was just a mile up to the place they were supposed to be. Doc still remained silent, mostly speculating, and Marty did as well. Eventually, the time machine arrived at what seemed to be a big field, crowded with people. The inventor could see there were gates around it, and there was an immense television screen of some sort there somewhere, playing something that neither of them could really identify. Doc parked the bus a few dozen yards away from the entrance, and stepped out again, Marty following. Together, they walked up to the gate, and to the entrance.

"Got an entrance card?" the man at the gate asked, glaring.

Doc winced slightly. "Um, no, sir" he said. "I didn't know…"

"That'll be twenty-five bucks for the both of you" the man interrupted, clearly not really in a good mood. "Just pay here please."

Doc frowned at the low price… well, for 2015 it was a low price anyway. "Oh, okay" he said, still a little nervous. "Do you accept cash?"

The man gave him another glare. "No" he said. "We'd like you to pay with satellite parts." He dropped the sarcasm, obviously annoyed. "Of course we accept cash! What do you think we are, idiots? You can use your credit card if you wish, but cash is always fine with us."

"Um, okay" Doc replied, a little blown back at the man's offensive actions. "Here's twenty-five dollars." He took out his wallet, and paid the man. After receiving their tickets, they walked on, and soon came across another guy, who was looking at them with sympathy. "You should probably just ignore him" he said, pointing at the guy who had asked about the entrance card. "He's in a bad mood again." The guy smirked. "Here… I shall take your tickets." Doc handed them to them, and the man patted Marty on the shoulder. "Have a nice day. My compliments on the costume, by the way… if I didn't know any better, I'd think you really were Marty McFly and Dr. Emmett Brown."

Doc frowned at that, then shrugged it off. He figured that if in this world, their future selves were famous for some reason, that could only be profitable for them… even though he did wonder about the waiter's comment in the shop, who had, after all, said that McFly probably wasn't a real name in this world. Not really thinking it was important, he walked onto the field.

On the field were, as said before, an awful lot of people, and there seemed to be all kinds of market stalls everywhere. The weirdest, though, was that everybody took a double look after seeing them. Doc winced – he was used to it, a bit, but it did make him feel embarrassed.

After about a minute or two walking, mostly staying out of the mass of people in order to avoid being seen much, they arrived relatively close to the television screen. The crowd was beginning to gather around it for some reason, which made Doc able to count all of them. He estimated the total being about ten to twenty thousand people. It was quite fascinating, actually.

"What time is it?" Marty asked, removing Doc from his thought processes.

"In our world of in this world?" the inventor responded, his eyes still fixed on the enormous television screen. It looked like it was about eight feet tall, with twelve feet as it's width. It had to have been created for a really special event.

"This world" Marty then responded. Doc nodded, and took his watch. "Um… it's four-twenty-eight P.M. and thirty-nine seconds" he replied. "Why do you want to know?"

Marty shrugged. "I don't know" he admitted. "I suppose I just want to go home. I've got this awkward feeling about…"

His words were suddenly cut off as the crowd started cheering and numbers started appearing on the television screen. "Ten! Nine! Eight!"

"What's going on, Doc?" Marty shouted, unable to make the inventor hear him otherwise.

"Seven! Six! Five!"

"I don't know!" Doc shouted back. "How should I know? I'm new to this dimension! We'll just have to wait and see!"

"Four! Three! Two!"

Marty nodded. "You're probably right" he said. "It can't be that bad." He, however, didn't know how wrong he was.

"One! ZERO!!!!!!"

With a loud 'boom' kilo's of fireworks went into the air at one moment, as the television displayed the words 'October 21st 2015 4:29 PM'. Just as Doc was about to voice his surprise, it all started.

The words disappeared, and in it's place, the words 'Back to the Future' appeared. Loud music started to play from the speakers on the field, and Marty and Doc watched with amazement to see no one else than _Doc himself_ appear on the screen, standing on top of the clock tower, watching as Marty approached in the DeLorean. ScreenDoc slid down the ropes and went up to the street. The time travellers could do nothing but watch as lightning struck, Marty vanished to the future and cheers erupted from the crowd. The screen continued to show images, first of their events in 2015, random scenes from the hoverboard sequence and Jennifer fainting at seeing her other self, and went on showing pictures from the Old West as well, and even some from Hell Valley, and finished with the time train flying towards the screen at the end of that amazing weekend. In it's place appeared the words: 'Back to the Future: The greatest movie trilogy of all times'.

Doc felt faint and Marty didn't feel too well himself. They had now found out what the reason was for Hill Valley not existing, but they didn't like it too much. It now all fit in.

In this world, they didn't exist.

In this world, their life was a movie.

"Great Scott!" Doc exclaimed, pale.

"This is _heavy_!" Marty whispered, just as stunned. "I – I can't believe this!"

"I didn't expect you to, as I can't believe it either myself" Doc shouted out. "It looks like we're… we're movie characters here!"

"But how?" Marty exclaimed. "That's… that's impossible! This can't be real!"

"I'm afraid it is" Doc said, sighing. "This does make me feel rather distressed as well, but we can't deny the truth."

Marty shook his head. "This has to be some kind of joke" he muttered, even though it was obvious he knew that was not the truth. "This can't be happening! How can this be even possible?"

"That would require a very complicated multi-dimensional answer" Doc said, sighing. "At the moment, though, I suppose that, in a way, this world is different from all the others." He smiled slightly. "Now that I've come over the initial shock, it does sound rather interesting, to be honest. I'm not quite sure what kind of divergence point might've caused this reality to be, but it is a fascinating change. Imagine this. To be actually a movie character…"

"I suppose" Marty muttered, even though it was obvious that he didn't exactly share Doc's thoughts on the subject. "Doc… are we going to go home now? I mean, with this world being less advanced than ours, as we could see from the flying cars, we can't really do much here that helps speeding up our return to our home dimension. And I'm not quite sure whether I'd like to spend much time here, either."

"Why not?" Doc asked, looking at him with a somewhat curious smile. "Aren't you interested in this phenomenon?"

The teen shrugged. "Not really" he muttered. "I mean, this is so weird… I can't believe it's actually true. Being a movie character doesn't sound like the greatest idea that I've ever encountered. Maybe we should go home. I think that my dislike for this idea could be partly because I'm tired of all these odd dimensions, but…" He shrugged again. "Let's just go."

"You're probably right" Doc said, nodding. "Come on – we should be able to get away from here by walking between these cars. It should lead us away from the crowd and into the fields nearby, so we can make a large circle-movement that'll make us go back to the bus."

"You're the Doc, Doc" Marty said, nodding in agreement. "Although there is the fact that, considering the entrance costs, we should've stuck around for a little while longer."

"Yes, that's too bad" Doc agreed. "But, well, when it's time to go, it's time to go. I suppose that entrance costs are the least of our concerns right now."

Marty nodded, and walked after the inventor as they moved away from the crowd, which was watching some Back to the Future scenes again, which Doc recognised as being from that first journey to the future with Marty and Jennifer, and went past the cars there. There were a few buses among them, and that made a perfect cover. The inventor sighed with relief, and noticed Marty do the same.

Their relief didn't last long, though. Moments later, a middle-aged man – Doc guessed he was about early sixties, maybe late fifties – came running up to them, or at least, ran as fast as he could at his age. The man was wearing a director's outfit, and looked at them rather annoyed.

"Chris!" he exclaimed. "Michael! Where have you been!" He looked at the latter. "Michael? Why do you look so young?"

"Um, well," Marty started, nervously, "you see, Mr. Zemeckis, it's just…"

"It's not important" the man that Marty had properly identified as the director of Teens In Time, Robert Zemeckis, said. "You need to get on stage right away, the whole crowd is waiting for you two, and what made you look so young is not important. It's probably got to do with your Parkinson's disease."

"My _what_?" Marty exclaimed, horrified, as Doc winced. Why did Mr. Zemeckis have to bring up that particular issue…

Mr. Zemeckis frowned. "Are you all right, Michael?" he said, softer now. "It looks like you're really having a tough time with all this. Maybe I shouldn't have asked you to come to this festival, but it's really a once-in-a-time event, after all…"

"It's okay" Marty managed. "You go ahead and announce us coming – we'll be there in a minute."

"Okay" Mr. Zemeckis agreed. "Do hurry, though – if you aren't there within two minutes, I'll come looking for you again. Not to put any pressure on you, but you know how the crowd can be."

Marty nodded sheepishly, as Mr. Zemeckis went off. As the man had disappeared around the corner, he immediately turned to Doc, his faint smile changing into anger within a second. "Doc!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't you tell me this was going to happen to Michael J. Fox? You knew I'd want to know!"

Doc stepped back. "I know" he muttered. "But I thought that, since he isn't really your favourite actor and all, and I didn't know too much about it anyway, that you'd better find out through the natural course of time…"

"You also knew that I'd really like to know when something like this happens to someone who looks just like me!" Marty shouted. His voice softened. "And is the actor who plays me in a film, too… Doc, do you think that I… that I might get…" His voice trembled, unable to go on.

"No, Marty" Doc said, firmly. "You will not get this disease. I'm certain of that particular fact. I have seen the future several times, and I know for a fact that all versions of you that I saw there were completely healthy, well, except for your first self of course, who had his hand broken. If you would get such a bad disease, I would've known it by now. And even if you do get the disease, because of the future being constantly in flux, then I'll take you to the future, no matter how far, to 2015, to 2030, to 2100, to 2500 for all I care, until we'll find a way to fix it. I promise you that, Marty."

"All right" Marty said, returning to the matter at hand. "Doc… do you think we really ought to go up there? Mr. Zemeckis did say that he was gonna come back if we didn't come…"

Doc sighed. "I'm afraid so, yes" he said. "I don't like this either, as it might cause some problems to us and we know we're not prepared for this at all, but we'll have to go ahead with this. This is hardly a place to get away – the only way out besides our original escape route, where they seem to have just parked a car, leads to the stage." He looked at Marty. "Should I go first?"

Marty shrugged. "I'll go with you" he said. "I suppose that we'd better go up there together – that way, we'll be done sooner."

Doc nodded, and the two of them walked off to the stage, passing Lea Thompson and Thomas F. Wilson on the way up to the stage – the inventor figured he could've guessed that those actors would've been involved in the movie, as they held such a stunning resemblance to Marty's mother and Biff Tannen respectively. The locals gave them a thumbs-up, which Marty hesitantly returned. They then walked up to the stage, where Mr. Zemeckis was still telling the audience a joke. It wasn't really the greatest joke and no one laughed about it, so he automatically brightened when he saw Marty and Doc appearing.

"Ah, there you are" he said, relieved, turning to the crowd. "Well… ladies and gentlemen, I now announce to you the persons you all know, the main actors in the movie – Michael Andrew Fox and Christopher Allen Lloyd!"

The time travellers winced, as the crowd began to cheer. A lot of female cries of 'Mike!!!' and a few cries of 'Chris!!!' shattered through the air, which naturally did everything to make the two more and more uncomfortable. Although he himself had proposed going first, Doc had to try as hard as he could to actually go up there and speak.

"Um, good afternoon" he finally whispered, softly. A cheer immediately erupted in the crowd, causing the inventor to wince again, and by the time the crowd had returned to silence, he wasn't sure what to say next.

"It's nice to see how everyone has come here" he said, his voice picking up speed and noise as he went on, relaxing a slight bit. "Today is a very special day for us, as main cast of the… um… the Back to the Future trilogy," at least he hadn't forgotten that, "and we're happy to see you all here to celebrate it with us." He relaxed more, going on with his story. "As I said, today is a special day. It is the day that, um, Dr. Brown and his assistant Marty McFly arrived in the future. Ever since the day that you all saw the movie for the first time, we've been waiting for it, and now the day has come." He noticed all people's gazes being on him now, and winced. "I'm glad that…" No, he had said that already. The inventor began to crumble under the gaze of the audience, who were confused about him not saying anything more meaningful than what he'd just muttered. Sweat began to appear on his forehead. He had to get out of here. At least Marty was going to be used to huge crowds listening to him in the future, being a rock and roll musician and all. Emmett stepped back and pushed Marty towards the microphone, stepping back into the shadows himself. He knew this wasn't exactly fair to Marty, but he wasn't seeing any other way out. "And now Marty, um, Michael will answer a few questions if you want to ask them" he said.

Marty was obviously not too happy with Doc's decision, but soon, he couldn't protest anymore, as cheers erupted in the crowd again, and everyone began to ask questions right through each other. Poor Marty winced as he heard everyone ask all kinds of things, and wasn't really happy being in his position. The nineteen-year-old was obviously about to flee when Mr. Zemeckis re-appeared and came to his aid, shooting an angry look towards Doc, who guessed that he had probably done something wrong. "All right, everybody!" he called out. "Just take this one by one, shall we? Poor Michael is having a hard enough time already. Just raise your hand and Michael will answer your question as best as he can. And no more than a few questions, please… we're not at a question-and-answer session, after all."

Marty gave him a thankful look, and looked at the crowd. "All right, you with the pink jacket can go first" he eventually said. As a lot of boo-calls came as a result, he called out: "Hey, I was just choosing at random!"

As the mass quieted down, the woman in question spoke up. "Mr. Fox?" she asked, somewhat shy. "Um… I wanted to know what your favourite colour is."

Marty thought about that for a moment. Doc could guess the teen had no idea what colour his favourite actor preferred, so he had to choose his own. "Brown" he said, smiling at the woman, who immediately blushed. The inventor could easily tell what his friend was thinking – it had to be odd to see someone obviously almost two decades older than him act this way around the nineteen-year-old.

The woman shrugged. "Oh" she said. "That's… well, I suppose it's okay. I'd hoped you preferred pink instead, but brown is okay, I guess."

Marty frowned a little at that, but before he could react, hands rose again and he chose at random once again. This time, a young woman in her late twenties spoke up. "Mr. Fox?" she asked. "Why isn't Mr. Lloyd answering any questions?"

Doc winced, hoping this question hadn't come. Marty turned to look at him, and the inventor shrugged, not really able to come up with a reason for turning back. He walked towards the microphone and turned to the young woman. "Ask me what you want" he said, softly.

"Mr. Lloyd?" the girl asked, blushing slightly. "Do you think you'll ever act in a movie or television show again? Even just a cameo appearance?" She blushed even more. "I mean, you were… you know… really cute in the Back to the Future movies…"

Doc's eyes opened wide. "Excuse me?" he said, astonished.

The girl blushed even more, if that was even possible. "Well, it's true" she said. "I really did like your acting works… especially in that cute Doc Brown costume you're wearing now…"

"Great Scott!"

The crowd burst into laughter at Doc's outburst, which was a reason for the inventor to back up into the shadows again, still breathing more rapid than usual. He remained there as Marty answered more and more questions. Eventually, the question session ended, and the other director of Teens In Time, Bob Gale, walked up to the microphone.

"Well, I suppose I should say 'good afternoon' to you all as well, like Chris did" he said. "I don't really have too much to report to you, besides the fact that I'm glad you're all here, which does really make me happy. To think that a movie trilogy like 'Back to the Future' is still attracts so many fans after all this time… well, it does make one think." He turned towards Marty. "And now, I would like to ask Michael whether he would like to give a speech for us, to promote the re-release of the new all-inclusive Back to the Future DVD's, and the re-opening of the Back to the Future: The Ride."

As the crowd cheered once again, Doc sighed. They really weren't going to get away from here yet.

* * * *

Marty winced, as he heard Mr. Gale make that announcement. He nervously stepped forwards to the microphone again, facing the crowd. He really had no idea what to say, and just held the microphone for a few moments, until Mr. Gale gave him a push in the back to urge him to at least say something. The teen winced at that, and turned back to the crowd. "Well," he started, nervously, "today certainly is a great day, and I would like to say that I really appreciate you coming here."

"They've heard that at least twice before today" Mr. Gale commented, slightly angry. "Mike, why don't you just go on? You know what to do."

Marty sighed. There really was no way to escape now, was there? He sighed, turning towards the mike. "Well," he muttered, "I…"

Suddenly, he was cut off from his speech by a large airplane flying over. The teen looked up, as stunned as the rest of the crowd, as the airplane began to descend to the field, while it announced a message. "Here speaks the captain of the airplane carrying Mr. Fox and Mr. Lloyd" the pilot said. "Apologies for being late, as Mr. Fox insisted on attending the birth of his first grandson. We're landing now."

The crowd was stunned, as were Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. They looked at Marty and Doc, somewhat uncomfortably, before turning back to the airplane, which landed with a lot of noise.

That noise seemed to be enough distraction for Doc to make his move. He turned towards his friend. "Marty!" he exclaimed, making sure that his friend saw him. "RUN!"

The inventor didn't need to tell Marty that. As fast as they could, the two time travellers raced off the stage, and made Doc's 'circle-movement' back to the time bus. They wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. Doc ran past the stairs that were moving down out of the airplane, which had just landed. Marty was about to follow…

…when he suddenly collided with something relatively hard, at least it seemed hard due to his speed, and together with this object or whatever it was, he fell down to the ground.

The teen was stunned, and even more so when the 'object' was revealed to be none other than Michael J. Fox himself, whom he was now facing with less than a foot distance between them, as Michael had fallen down on top of Marty. Michael let out a short scream as he saw Marty, who took that as an opportunity to push his 'counterpart' off and get back to his feet, subconsciously putting some box of some sorts that Michael had dropped onto him in his jacket as he did so.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Christopher Lloyd exclaimed, astonished. He grabbed Marty's arm. "What are you doing? Who are you, anyway?"

"Someone your friend here knows very well" Marty said.

"What?" Michael said, getting back to his feet as well.

"Never mind" Marty said, pulling himself loose from the other actor's grip. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you, anyway." He ran away, following Doc, as Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd stood watching them without being able to do anything about it.

The teenager ran off, through the fields, following Doc and eventually catching up to him as he did the fastest piece of running he'd ever done before. Within just a minute or two, they reached the time bus, where Doc threw trash into the Mr. Fusion unit as Marty headed inside after the inventor had opened the door. Moments later, Doc entered as well, and the time train lifted off from the ground and into the sky. Doc wiped some sweat off his face. "Great Scott!" he exclaimed. "Now that's something we didn't expect!"

"Yeah!" Marty agreed. "Depends on what you mean, though…"

Doc waved his hand randomly around. "Just… everything" he concluded. "It was the whole situation all together that was odd. Great Scott… Marty, do you mind us time travelling right now?"

"What do you _think_?" Marty said, smirking. "I was the one to face a Michael J. Fox who played me at just a few inches distance. I think I would be completely insane if I didn't want to go."

Doc chuckled. "You're probably right" he admitted. "All right, destination…" He looked around, then stopped as he fixed his gaze on Marty. "Marty… what's that box?"

The teen frowned. "Huh? What?" He took the box out of his jacket. "I don't know… it kind of fell onto me when I collided with Mr. Fox…" He took a good look at it. "Apparently it's a new box which includes a long DVD… or whatever _that_ is… with the Back to the Future movies, Animated Series and footage from the BTTF 'ride'." He frowned. "Sounds like the new thing that I was supposed to present. Doc, do you think we've screwed up their history now?"

"With the whole thing going on, I think we've got something more substantial to worry about" Doc said, smirking. "Anyway, we're in the future, and in another dimension, so it can't be that bad." He turned back to the controls. "Destination Time: April 2, 1988… let's see, it's 4:47 now here, so… 12:47 PM!"

"No 2015?" Marty said, smiling sheepishly.

Doc smiled back. "Nah, I don't think that sounds like a great idea" he said. "We'd better stay hopping through the normal times from now on. I've seen enough of other 2015s to last for a lifetime. Speaking of hopping…" He turned on the flying circuits. "Brace yourself for dimensional displacement!"

"We're leaving?" Marty asked.

"Correct" Doc confirmed, piloting the time bus so that it was in some sort of a normal position. "All right, here we go." He thought about that for a moment. "And," he added, as the time machine raced up to 88 above the field where a stunned crowd watched them depart and Marty noticed his 'counterpart' not really looking too good himself, "let's hope that we will now finally land in a sane world – and in one that can finally get us home!"


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own the movies. I also don't own the summarizing way of dimension-telling in the beginning, which is right out of Kristen Sheley's story. **

**Author's Note: **Considering the length, you are probably satisfied that this is the last update. This is the IDIATM Universe, where Doc and Marty finally relax as the long hopping event is over. Read and review, please.

**Chapter ****Thirteen**

Saturday, April 2, 1988

2:22 P.M.

Hill Valley, California

While Doc's prediction, spoken with as much hope as he could gather within himself, did eventually come true, it did take a while for it to happen. After departing the world where Marty had, at the last moment and to his own surprise, managed to pick up some interesting movies, they hopped through a great deal of other worlds first.

The first of them all was a world where Hill Valley was restored, as it should be, and Doc was married to Clara. However that did give him a lot of hope, the circumstances that they found were not so good. Apparently, in this world, Biff Tannen had gone on to chase after Marty in 1955, and had, after Marty tossed the almanac to Doc to save it, ended up in the DeLorean when it was struck by lightning and was stuck in 1885. Somehow, the local inventor had managed to cure Biff of his evilness – well, a little, at least – and eventually they had all gotten home, with Clara. Biff had been dropped off in 1955, and, with Biff now knowledgeable about the time machine, Doc had decided to destroy the time machine the best he could. It had never been rebuilt since, and thus, Emmett was not able to help his visitors, who had to go on and find the next world.

The next idea they encountered was a world in which Marty had travelled to 1985 instead of 1885 when departing from the fifties to rescue Doc. He'd taken Jennifer with him, hover-converted the DeLorean in the future, and then, he had gone back to rescue his best friend. Unfortunately, this story turned out to be bad as well, as Clara was never met by local Doc, who had, after some initial indecision, decided not to destroy the time machine. He was just as single as his previous self, and had no knowledge of any dimension travelling at all, which caused the visiting time travellers to realise that their best bet was in leaving, as Emmett couldn't help them fix the time machine.

The world following on that one was a rather interesting world as well. Biff had, once again, followed Marty and Doc longer, causing him to end up in a fight with Marty over the almanac. He was eventually helped, however, by his father, who explained that Doc, who had still been sent back to 1885, had sent his younger self a letter explaining that he should send Marty some help. The idea that both of Marty's parents ended up finding out about their son's secret so early on was a little creepy for the teenager, and while the world had ended up turning out pretty well, the local inventor was still not able to fix the time machine. Therefore, Marty and Doc had to leave this world, and go on to the next dimension once again.

As they remained at this, the dimensions began to blur together. Minutes became hours, hours became days. More and more 'no's' were received, more and more hops were made. They went quicker, too. Once Doc discovered his local self had no time machine around and had nothing that could potentially help them, he gave him the quick summary, gave Emmett a quick tour, and leave right away instead of letting his other self check out the time machine for hours. Marty was kind of confused at that, but let his friend do that. Sometimes, the teen even fell asleep while dimension travelling, and Doc had to wake him up again. The scientist himself remained stubbornly awake, even though he eventually came to be on the verge of exhaustion.

More and more worlds were visited. There was a world where Marty had accidentally lost the almanac to George's friend Lester, 'Wallet Guy', in 1955, and the Square was dominated by a hotel in the shape of a wallet. There was a world where the Tannen's were good and the McFly's were evil. There was a world where Doc had simply never invented the time machine as he had never hit his head on November fifth, 1955. There was a world where Marty had crashed the DeLorean into the phone booth on the Mall parking lot in 1985 and he and Doc were both dead – which did, naturally, do nothing to un-depress the time travellers. There was a world where a protective new timeline Marty had thrown himself in front of Doc to save him as he was about to get shot by Libyans and the locals had just narrowly avoided a paradox after Marty had died, and had thus decided to destroy the time machine. There was a world where little William Sean McFly had died at two days old, thus there were no McFly's… well, there were McFly's, descendants of William's younger brother Arthur, but there were none that Marty knew. There was also a world where the time machine had failed at the original test. One where Marty and his family were moved up fifteen years, so George and Lorraine were both born in 1953 and Emmett had lived through the same thing his counterpart in the 'no Marty world' had. There was one where Marty and Doc were the same age, both born in 1920. There was a variation on that one where both were born in 1938. There was even a world where Marty was born as father to Lorraine Baines. All these worlds felt really awkward to visit, one more than the others, and eventually, Marty got tired of it.

"How long are we going to go on with this, Doc?" he exclaimed, angry, as the time machine was just picking up speed for another jump. "This is going to take ages! I – what time is it, anyway?"

Doc checked his watch. "3:22 A.M" he reported. "The day is Thursday, April 7th… or at least, that's what it would be if we had remained in our home dimension."

Marty sighed deep. "So you're telling me that we've been at this for almost _five full days_ now?"

"Affirmative" Doc said.

The teenager winced. "Are we ever going to get home?" he asked. "Do you really think that in one of these worlds, we might actually hit the jackpot, so to speak, and arrive in a world that could actually help us?" He sighed. "Sometimes I think that maybe, we should just settle down in one of these worlds. Then I remember how bad that might make Jennifer feel. I mean, I really do love her – and my parents, of course. They'd never see us again."

"Yes, that's unfortunately the truth" Doc said, sighing. "Therefore, we have to go on. We could try to find a reality where we can relax for a while, though. That would be quite nice. In that case, we would get some comfort, and hopping through universes would become a little easier to bear."

"Yeah, definitely" Marty said, looking at the DFSCUPCIF, which was still fluxing away at the front of the bus. "You know, I wonder if, after this, I'll ever want to travel with the time machine again, let alone with the dimensional function on. This was a rather heavy experience, after all – and it still is."

"Yes, I can imagine that" Doc said. "We shouldn't give up all hope on the time machine, but I do propose that we should quit time travelling for a while. I could still make some occasional trips to the future, but I wouldn't involve you in it, at least for about half a year."

"That sounds like a good idea" Marty said, yawning. "Not that I ever go along with you to the future anyway, but I guess you mean future, past_ and_ alternate present."

"Yes, that's what I mean" Doc confirmed. "All right, brace yourself. We're about to dimension-hop once again."

"I don't need to brace myself for that" Marty said, smiling faintly, as the time bus headed up to 88 and once again travelled to another dimension. "Don't see the need for it. I think I've gotten a little used to this experience by now."

"Yes, we've made quite a few dimension-hops so far" Doc agreed. "Let's see…" He turned a few switches. "Apparently, we've travelled through fifty-two dimensions so far, counting our latest jump."

"Fifty-two?" Marty said, his eyes widening for a moment. "I know that we've been at this for a long time, but really?"

"Fifty-two it is" Doc confirmed. "I'm not lying here – not that I was before, but you get the point. We've been travelling through fifty-two universes so far, and it doesn't seem like we're about to stop soon." He sighed, depressed. "Great Scott…"

"I know Doc" Marty said, walking over and patting his friend on the back.

Doc gave him a smile. "Thanks" he whispered. "We're in this together you know, and I suppose we'll have to cooperate if we want to get out of this okay."

"That's true" Marty agreed. "Speaking of which, where are we now? What's going on in this dimension?"

The inventor looked out of the window. "Seems like my house is restored to how I know it again" he reported. "It looks a little funny, though – kind of like it's been restored really recently." He then shrugged. "But who cares. If it is a reality that'll get us home, it won't matter to me. Ready to check it out?"

Marty sighed. "Why not" he muttered. "It'll probably do me good to get out anyway. The past two dimensions I was just sitting inside. Maybe the wind and the sunshine on my face will revive me a little – even though I highly doubt that."

"Yes, considering how tired you currently are, I'd doubt the matter of the weather being capable of waking you up more too" Doc agreed. "But we haven't tried yet, and one should always try before making a final statement about something. So we'll have to land in order to really see what will happen."

"I hope it will be good" Marty said, as the time bus descended again. "We should not have any hope, probably, since it'll disappoint us less when we'll get a negative answer – which we will get most likely – but I can't help it. I want to have some hope to get home. Without that, I'll be completely lost in here."

"Yeah, I can understand what you mean" Doc said, smoothly landing the bus in the backyard of the big house. "Well, once we'll confront our other selves, we should see whether they can help us, and after that, we could ask them whether they can provide us with some sleeping space – which they should be capable of, considering the size of my house. That way, you can finally get your rest."

"And you too" Marty reminded him. "Remember, you'll have to relax a bit as well. You can't go on forever without any sleep."

"Considering how tired your mention of the word 'sleep' just made me feel, I have no reason to doubt your statement" Doc agreed. "Anyway, let's go outside, shall we? The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we'll be able to sleep."

Of course, Marty agreed with that, and within moments, they re-entered the cold of the average April day. Marty shivered at the cold of the April sky, which he had grown unused to at this point, but managed to keep himself all right, and soon, after locking the bus, they walked up to the back door. Doc looked at his friend. "Do you want the honour?"

Marty shook his head. "You go ahead" he said. "I think I'm too tired to actually go and raise my hand to knock."

Doc resisted the urge to smile – after all, he could identify pretty much the same feelings with himself. Instead, he knocked on the door, took a step back so that he wouldn't be as close to his other self as Marty had been in the universe where they were fictional – Great Scott, that was quite a time ago now – and waited.

After about half a minute of waiting, as Doc began to get tired of waiting, the door was opened by his local counterpart, Emmett, who took a look at Doc and frowned. "Three?" he asked, surprised. "What are you doing here? I thought you were fixing something up in the lab…"

Doc felt honestly astonished. "Do you recognise me?" he asked, confused.

"Of course I do" Emmett said, a little confused by this question as well. "You're my other self. Now, if you would follow me, then maybe you can come in, with your Marty… well, the only Marty now… as well. It's kind of cold out here after all. What were you doing outside anyway? Did you need something for any of your experiments?" He peeked past the inventor. "I don't see a bag of some sorts anywhere if you were collecting anything… Great Scott!"

The jaw of the local dropped as he took a good look at the time bus. "Three, what are you doing!" he exclaimed. "Why on earth did you feel the need to park that bus in our backyard? Or didn't you do it?"

This seemed to be the perfect opportunity to make clear to Emmett that he was slightly mistaken in his assumptions. "I did park it here" he said, simply. "I am not the person you assume I am, though. I am a version of yourself from another dimension… do you recognise the term?"

Emmett blinked, surprised. "Um, yes, I do" he said. "In fact, I'm even working on a device that should enable us to travel to ones myself. I don't intend to use it much, but it's in the finishing stages, and I thought that it would be nice to have that capability… but are you really from another world? A completely separate universe?"

"Definitely" Marty confirmed before Doc could say a word. "We've been hopping through worlds for quite some time now as our dimension machine is broken, and if you really do have a dimension device, then you might be what we're waiting for." He frowned. "But why did you address Doc as 'Three'? And why was I 'his' Marty? Was there really another me here once?"

"If you're really not from here, that's going to be a complicated story" Emmett said. "But yes, considering everything that Three and I have worked on, I might be able to help you out." He shook his head. "Great Scott… I never expected to encounter this today, but I guess that you didn't either, did you?"

"Well, other dimensions we did expect, but not really this much of them" Doc admitted. "So yes, we were quite surprised when this ended up happening. It's kind of nice to explore other worlds, but considering we've been away from our home for four days and fifteen hours now, I think that it's about time that we ended up in a world that is the answer to our prayers, so to speak."

"Yes, I can understand that" Emmett said, shaken up. "Follow me – my, um, my Marty should be in the lab, working with Three, and Susan might be there as well. The rest should be upstairs, and Three's Marty is home, while Calvin is as well, so you can safely go to the living room without encountering anyone."

"All right" Doc said, however he felt even more confused than he had been before, especially by the mention of all these persons. "Um… did you really say 'Calvin' just now?"

"Yes, I definitely did" Emmett said. "Is the name familiar to you?"

"You could say that" Doc said, thoughtfully, and smiled faintly as he wondered whether he had part of the key to this universe in mind here. "We won't tell you just yet – it'll probably be a part of our side of the long story. And maybe of yours, too."

Emmett frowned, then shrugged it off and led them to the living room, which looked mostly similar to the living room in Doc's house. "Sit down, please" he said. "I'll be back in a minute – just need to gather Three and the others. I can imagine they'll be very surprised about the story." He then thought of something. "Oh, and what about the bus?"

Doc thought about that for a moment. "We can leave it out there for now, as we'll tell the basics of our story, but if you can really fix it, we can probably move it into the house later… if there is place, of course."

"There should be" Emmett assured him. "And if there isn't, I'll make sure that my other self makes space. Now that we've got this issue behind us, is there anything else that you wanted to say to me before I go?"

Doc shook his head, and Marty, who looked like he was half-asleep already, did the same. "Good" Emmett said, looking at Marty's condition with slight amusement. "You guys amuse yourselves here – as I said, I'll be right back."

Doc nodded, and as Emmett had gone, he looked over at Marty. "This does seem to give us some hope, doesn't it?" he said, thoughtfully. "If he really is working on a dimensional machine, well, then we should have a bonus. Whether he really does have a working time machine around is still the question, but if he does, then we'll be able to get some real progress, probably. Considering the fact that he's with another version of himself as well, if I understood him right, then this reality might be the key that we're waiting for."

"Yeah, that could be the case" Marty agreed. "So, what do you think that caused the change this time around? I mean, he does seem to be very similar to us, with him working on a dimensional machine and living in this house and all, but the multiple versions of him and me do erase that argument a little. And this Calvin…" He looked up. "Doc, did you think the same thing about him as I did?"

"If you thought that he's the same person as in the very first universe we visited, then yes" Doc agreed. "We can't know for sure whether he's also from the future and your counterpart's son – of either of them, including that Marty that was no longer a Marty anymore, or whatever he said – but it does give us some feeling of similarity, and if we've landed in a very similar universe, let's hope that those similarities include the state of the time machine, which was, in their universe, just one week from being finished after all. While I'm not prepared to wait for months, I think that one week is a time that we can wait out, especially if we help them building the vehicle, since it'll take less time then."

"You're the Doc, Doc" Marty agreed.

"Thanks" Doc said. He felt distracted by the surroundings of the room. It was very awkward to see how everything had turned out to be in this world. While he had noticed before that the room looked in fact pretty similar to how he remembered it, there were some differences. Among them was the box that was standing on one side of the room, which, as Doc looked closer, revealed that it contained two boys. The inventor shook his head at how tired he was. The thought that he hadn't even manage to see the box when he first went in really did say something about his mental health. "Great Scott" he whispered. "Marty! Look!"

"A box" Marty noticed. "Who's in it?"

"Two boys" Doc said, walking over to the box and peeking into it. "Seem to be about the same age – shouldn't be much more than half a year old. Maybe nine months. I'm not really an expert with baby's."

"You've had three" Marty pointed out. "Jules, Verne and Martin. You should know something about it."

"I do, but not much." Doc looked inside again. "They do look kind of familiar, so I'm going to gather that they're my other self's kids, and… hey!"

"What's the matter?" Marty asked, frowning.

Doc pointed at a photograph that was on top of the mantel. "That seems to be a wedding picture of some sorts" he said. His curiosity was gathered, and he walked over. "Yep, it definitely is – Great Scott!"

"What's the matter this time?" Marty said, obviously annoyed. Doc could imagine that – sitting down usually didn't help too much when you were tired. But still, he didn't blame himself for shouting, as he had felt really shocked at this. "It's the wedding picture of my other self, as I gathered," he said, "but there's a lot more persons on it! Three versions of you, two of me, one of which is the groom, and the bride – Susan Clayton again – and then there's the… Great Scott, there are three of Jennifer too!"

"Three of Jennifer?!" Marty exclaimed, the shock jolting him back to his feet and out of his sleepiness. "That's… I gotta see that!"

"Have a look" Doc offered, handing the picture to the teen. "If those other two girls aren't Jennifer, they look an awful lot like her."

"Yeah, they do" Marty said, looking at the photograph on an awkward way. "This is so odd…"

"I think I can understand that" Doc said, smiling a little. "Seeing multiple versions of Clara would be very odd as well – although I think that it would be even worse for Clara. Still, it's odd to see my wife but know she isn't." He sighed. "Just makes me miss home more. At least this reality has a Susan, thus no Clara."

"Well, you don't know that for sure" Marty pointed out. "I mean, there's two of you here, right? I think that there's a good chance the other you is married to a version of Clara. A Susan doesn't mean that there's no Clara, it just decreases the chance that there is a Clara. That's even true when there's just one of you. I mean, for all we know, you did save her life, but did not fall in love with her."

"I don't think I can picture that" Doc said, shaking his head. "It would just sound too weird."

"You'd better get used to that, then."

Doc and Marty swiftly turned around to face Emmett returning, followed by another version of Doc, a woman who looked a lot like Susan Clayton from the previous worlds, and a version of Marty. Doc stared at his other selves. "This looks odd" he muttered.

"Yes, I can agree with that" Emmett number two said, shaking his head. "One here explained just a little to me, so you'll need to tell me the rest. Is it really true that you're from another dimension?"

"Definitely" Doc confirmed. "I can understand that you two are a little confused at me showing up here, but the story is actually quite simple. I invented a device to travel between dimensions…"

"…the DFSCUPCIF?" Emmett number one guessed.

"That's right!" Doc exclaimed, stunned. "How did you know about that? Did you invent one yourself? You told me you were working on a dimensional device…"

"Well, we are planning to build a dimensional device into the DeLorean" Emmett One said. "I thought that maybe we could call it the DFSCUPCIF, and apparently, I was proven right on the name, while Three here was wrong. He thought that the device should have another name." He looked proudly over at his other self, who, to stay in the childish style, stuck out his tongue.

"Why are you calling him 'Three'?" Doc asked, frowning. "I mean, that does sound like an odd name. I take it you do it to distinguish each other, and that Two is not around at the moment?"

"Actually, in the most technical sense of the distinguishing system, Two should be dead" Emmett Three said. When he saw Doc look horrified, he assured him: "He isn't, really. Well, he is, but he's not… it's a confusing story. Let's just say that we'll tell you later."

"All right" Doc said, still a little confused. "I could live with that. Especially since we do have a lot on our minds anyway."

"Like what this 'DFSCUPCIF' thing is" Susan said, a little confused.

"Dimensional Flux Storage Capacitor Unit as well as Purposely Creator of an Interdimensional Field" Local Marty prompted, startling his other self. "It's the name that Dad thought up for the alternate version of the flux capacitor which is supposed to make us travel through dimensions after it's finished."

"Ah, okay" Susan said, nodding. "I believe Emmett talked to me about that, once."

"Yeah, Marty's explanation does seem to be accur - did you just say 'Dad'?!" Doc said, first normal, then stunned as he realised what Marty had said. "Please tell me I misheard that."

"You didn't" Susan said. "Emmett… Emmett One and I are Marty's adoptive parents. His own parents are… well, it's a complicated story. If you're going to be staying here for a while, as Emmett told us, then we'll probably tell you soon, but I suppose that you should check whether you'll stay at all first."

"We should, but I would like to ask whether we could stay anyway" Doc said. "Even if it's just to spend the night here. Marty and I are practically collapsing on our feet right now and… well, I think that, if we do have to go on, a little rest would do us good." He paused, considering that. "But I don't think we'll have to go on. I feel optimistic about this. I've got this feeling that we will end up succeeding in our mission in this universe, and it'll be rather hard to push it out of my mind."

"I hope you won't have to" Emmett One said. "Come on, Three, let's check out the time machine that our other self built."

Emmett Three nodded, as Doc turned to Visiting Marty. "Will you stay here?" he asked. "You can probably talk a little to Susan and your counterpart… I could imagine it if you would like to hear some more about your other self being my other self's son, or about some other things. I know you're probably on the verge of collapsing right now, but just hold out for a little while yet. I think that you'll sleep better if you know whether we can indeed go home here or not."

"You're the Doc, Doc" Marty agreed, smiling.

Doc smiled back as he and the Emmett's headed out of the house and up to the time bus. This was certainly a confusing dimension, and kind of odd, but for the first time in a long time, he finally had a feeling of hope, and that was something that no one was going to be able to steal from him any time soon.

* * * *

Visiting Marty sighed deeply. He had never thought the day had come – and in fact, he still didn't know whether it actually had, as for all he knew, he could still be stuck, but he felt pretty certain that it was going to work out now – and that he was actually able to sit down and realise that this universe was really going to help him and Doc get back home. Doc had gone off to check now, and if the test proved that they were right in their suspicions, then they would finally get a chance at coming home.

While the teenager felt completely exhausted, he remembered that Doc had told him not to go to sleep, so he remained awake. Feeling tired, he tried to distract himself by looking at the locals of this dimension, Susan Clayton-Brown and Local Marty, who had both sat down on the couch opposite his. It didn't really distract him all that much, as he'd seen another version of himself dozens of times before now, and he didn't realise that he'd almost dozed off until Susan's voice snapped him back to reality.

"So" Emmett One's wife said, looking at him. "How are you feeling? I suppose that you must be rather tired, if you've really travelled through several dimensions by now."

"Fifty-two" Visiting Marty confirmed. "And yeah, I suppose I'm pretty tired. I'd be surprised if I wasn't. I mean, I am almost losing track of how many universes we've gone through – if Doc hadn't told me, I don't think I would've known. I can remember all the worlds if you ask me to, but it'd be a lot of work."

"Yeah, I don't think I want to give you that annoyance" Susan agreed. "So, fifty-two worlds. Anything similar to ours out there?" She paused. "Speaking of which, I should have a better question… is yours anything like our world? I suppose the big difference is that there's just one of you and Emmett, unless the others didn't go along."

"Yeah, that's right" Visiting Marty confirmed. "But I've noticed other differences too… like those baby's over there."

Local Marty smirked. "Oh, those?" he asked. "Yeah, that's Doc's kid, and Dad's youngest son. Well, I suppose that I should distinguish the 'oldest' and 'youngest' with Doc too, with Clara pregnant again and all… but anyway, yeah, they're just babies. The left one, in the blue clothes, is Jules Eratosthenes Brown, Doc's son, born September twenty-fifth last year. The other guy is Dad's youngest… Herbert George Brown, born in the early morning of October twenty-ninth. Also last year."

"Herbert George Brown?" Visiting Marty repeated, frowning.

"After our second favourite author" Susan said, the enthusiasm about the name clearly distinguishable in her voice. "Herbert George Wells. Our oldest was named after Marty… well, I knew that two kids named Martin in our family wasn't really normal, considering that Marty is our adopted son as well, but Emmett insisted on it. He goes by his middle name, Calvin, most of the time anyway. And then there's his twin sister… Victoria Maria Brown, named after my ancestor, Maria Victoria Clayton."

"Clara's sister" Visiting Marty agreed, nodding. "Our Doc is married to her, you know… from what the other me said, I take it that, um, Three is as well?"

"That's correct" Susan agreed. "It's kind of funny how he still managed to rescue her from falling into the ravine in your world. It was kind of an odd story, after all. I take it you were present?"

"Yeah, I was" Visiting Marty said. "We were stuck back there. It's a confusing story… I'm not even sure where to begin. There's so much of your story that is probably different from ours." He looked at Local Marty. "Did you get to travel through time at the initial test? To 1955, where you messed up your parents' meeting, your mom fell in love with you, you had to make them fall in love, get back to the future through the lightning bolt, and warn Doc about being shot?"

"No" Local Marty said, a smile on his face. "My other self did, though. Sounds like that's all the same with you and him. I suppose that the differences came later, as I'm not here, and Calvin isn't with you either."

"Who's this Calvin fellow?" Visiting Marty said. "In the first universe we visited, he was my supposed twin whom Dad and Mom adopted as their son, but he really was from the future. It was my son, Marty Junior, who had gotten trapped in the '80s for more than two years."

"Weird" the local said. "No, he's not… he's actually a third version of us. As you can probably guess already, it's a complicated story."

"I could guess that when I came in" the visitor replied, smirking.

"I figured as much" Local Marty said. "But yeah, Calvin's story is a weird one, as is mine. Anyway, can I assume that you still went to 2015 because something was wrong with your kids? You saved Marty Junior from being bullied around by Griff Tannen, and… well, I'm not sure about this part… bought a sports almanac with fifty years of sports statistics?"

"That is correct" Visiting Marty said.

Local Marty's eyes widened. "Really?" he asked, scepticism obvious in his voice. "Even the latter?"

"Even the last one" Visiting Marty confirmed. "I did throw it away, though, after Doc insisted on it – actually, he was the one to throw the book away. Wasn't too good of an idea, as Biff Tannen found the almanac. We had to follow Jennifer, as she was taken off to Hilldale by some cops, and there, we had to rescue her, or well, Doc had. I admit that I got distracted, so as I was away from the car for a moment, Biff Tannen sneaked up and into the time machine, and before I knew it – in fact, I didn't even realise it until we'd departed 2015 – he'd gone into the past and given the almanac to his other self from November, 1955."

The local gasped. "But how's that all possible!" he exclaimed, with his adoptive mother appearing equally stunned. "If our world was still created, how is it possible that I'm not with you! That there's even a difference between our dimensions at all!"

Visiting Marty gasped back. "Our world?" he muttered, stunned. "You mean that you're from that Biff-horrific reality? Really?"

Local Marty and Susan both nodded, seeming a little sad, which, to be honest, didn't surprise the visitor all that much. "Yeah" the local teen whispered. "I don't like to think about it, though. That world was essentially hellish, and I had a terrible life there. Biff preferred abusing me above all things he liked to do. I think that he had the opinion that I was his stepson just so he could hurt me. Well, it wasn't as bad when I was not around, when I was at the boarding school, but when I was in Hill Valley… well, the slightest thing could get him mad at me. Poor Lorraine really had a hard time back then."

"No 'mom'?" Visiting Marty said, with a frown.

"No 'mom'" his other self confirmed. "Mrs. Brown here is my mother now, even though we're very close in age. Dad and Mom… the real ones… are really good friends of me, but I can't really say that my father is really my father. I never really knew him, after all. He's a nice guy, and my mother is, as well, but I think I'm a little more, well, you know, loyal to my adoptive parents. They did give me shelter when I ran away from the Pleasure Paradise in the centre of town."

"How did that happen, anyway?" Visiting Marty said, curious despite himself. "How did you guys all meet and become a, well, time travelling bunch of people that ended up here?" He frowned. "How could you even exit that world? Shouldn't you erase then?"

"That's one of the puzzles that Dad never found an answer to" Local Marty said, shrugging. "He always says that it's probably just luck, even though he is trying to find something out. He was a little worried about that in the beginning, but it all turned out fine in the end."

"I can imagine that" Visiting Marty agreed, looking over at the box again. "But, as I just asked, how did you get out of Biff's world?"

"A lot of luck, probably" Local Marty said. "It all started with my other self… the one that's currently named Calvin, as he's adopted by Mom and Dad… that guess is the right one. Or at least, the right part of the guess." He paused for a moment. "Calvin is probably pretty much what you were, up until the moment he and you went home from the lightning strike at the clock tower. You and Marty Three went home… he arrived in Biff's world."

Visiting Marty gasped. "That must've been quite a shock to him" he muttered. "I can remember how bad Hell Valley, as we called it, was, and to actually go there right from 1955…"

"He didn't like it" Local Marty agreed. "He almost went insane upon seeing the Pleasure Paradise. Even later, after seeing the mall was empty… no terrorists there, at least… he didn't feel too good. After that, he went to the garage Dad used to live in before he was committed… he was committed in Biff's world, you know. He researched history a little, and luckily Dad remembered that he could show up and had an employee send a letter to his garage, for Marty Two or Calvin or whatever you want to call him now to receive. He was stunned, of course, but did as the letter said, and came to visit Dad. They then planned to break Dad out."

"Sounds interesting" Visiting Marty said. "That does bring up the question about how you entered the scenario, though."

"Pure luck" Local Marty said. "I was just attending a party of some sorts at the Pleasure Paradise about which Biff insisted that I should attend. I arrived a night from beforehand, and by pure coincidence met up with my counterpart. He realised who I was, even though I had, naturally, no idea, convinced me that my true future was in helping breaking Dad out. I didn't really know Dr. Brown, but seeing that Biff hated him, I didn't think he could be too bad, and with the evidence that my other self showed me, I became convinced pretty soon. On the fateful night – Halloween – I went out of the Paradise, Marty Two broke Dad out with some kind of disguise, even though he was found out eventually so it was really close in the end, I got them a car of some sorts and together, we raced away from the Pleasure Paradise. We went out of town, to a mine of some sorts where Dad had stored the DeLorean, and started to work on it, hoping to build it into a working time machine with which we could escape the horrible Tannen-'80s."

"The Tannen-'80s" Visiting Marty said, with a smirk. "Nice name."

"Well, it was true" Susan argued. "Biff was one of the most powerful men on earth. He had great influence over the president, and Nixon did owe him one for getting him re-elected so often. Our world was so bad, that Marty's even told me that he had wished to be in Orwell's 1984 by the time that year rolled around."

Visiting Marty gasped. "Really?" he muttered, stunned.

"Well, I might've been exaggerating a little, but yes, that thought did cross my mind" the local agreed. "The main thing was that in Orwell's world, Biff was probably not my stepfather… and well, that beat anything for me. Even living in such a horrible world. And well... we were still in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and communists were still proclaimed 'bad', but I think that the US was slowly but surely developing into a worse nation than the Soviet Union was." He sighed. "It wasn't as bad yet, but with the Soviets themselves becoming less bad, that event was almost inevitable."

"That's… odd, I guess" the visitor said. "I mean, in our world, the SU also seems to develop into a slightly less undemocratic nation… and Doc has let something slip about 'it's collapse not being too far away'. But that it actually became less bad than the US?" He shook his head. "Not that America is everything, of course, but we are supposed to be the 'good guys', after all."

"Yeah, it's an odd situation" Local Marty said, with a sigh. "But then again, everything is in that world."

"I suppose so" Visiting Marty said. "We ended up seeing it – not too much of it, but the basics match. Doc was committed in what we found as well, and your mom was Biff's wife."

"You did?" the local said, eyes wide. "I believe you might've made some mentions to that, but I never really realised… Great Scott, that's weird. To think you actually saw our world. I mean, Marty and Doc Three did, too, but we ended up taking them there, they didn't come there by themselves. It's a strange thought."

"I suppose so" Visiting Marty said. "We ended up erasing that world, though, so we weren't inside for long. But yeah, it wasn't too nice in there."

"You can say that again" Local Marty muttered, sadly.

"I just did."

The local teen frowned, then chuckled as he got the joke. "I suppose I'm being a little too depressed, ain't I?" he said, shaking his head. "I should be glad that I'm out of there – and I am, really. There's nothing that causes me to be happier than the thought that I'll never have to see that awful version of Biff again."

"I can imagine that" Visiting Marty said, with some sympathy. "I suppose that the realisation that you're out of there does help you feel good, even though you'll never see the mother and father that you knew again. Then again, you wouldn't have ever seen Dad again if you stayed either, but you must miss your mother."

"I certainly do" the local said, sighing. "I did get to see her before we left – upon my insistence, Doc allowed me to go to the Paradise and visit her. She was really depressed. It was nice to meet her again, but the fact that she still believed that Biff was right and she was wrong did make me feel quite bad. Of course, when I saw her for the real last time, she was cured of that idea, but still."

As Visiting Marty wondered what the last line meant, Susan stood up and looked outside. "They are certainly taking a long time with that" she commented. "I know how Emmett can be around time travel and other vehicles that can transport one through time, but I'm getting the feeling he thinks that he can spend all the time he want out there. His other self does need some sleep, you know. Knowing Emmett, he's probably forgotten that… and if his other self is anything like him, it has probably slipped _his_ mind as well. Oh, _great_."

"I can see what you mean" the visitor said. "Bring Doc close to something that intrigues him, and it's a guarantee that he'll forget the time. Sometimes, I wonder how a guy like him could actually have invented a time machine, with his problems with time and all." He shook his head. "It has occurred multiple times before that I came to visit in the morning, found Doc in the lab, working on an invention of some sorts, and heard him claim that I startled him because he didn't expect me to 'arrive in the middle of the night'. It takes me a while to convince him that it's really morning already every time, and when he finally figures it out, he simply says: "Well, then I can go out to buy some parts for my inventions again because it's light, and get back to work." Honestly, sometimes, I simply think that he doesn't even know how to sleep. I'm not sure how Clara manages to put up with that."

"I'm sure that she's gotten used to it, one way or another" Susan said, smiling. "But yeah, I know that it can be pretty hard to live with Emmett Brown… even though I do love him, of course. I wouldn't have married him otherwise." She turned to her adopted son. "What do you think, Marty? You think you've got a nice father?"

"I don't really have a basis for comparison" Marty pointed out. "My stepfather was Biff Tannen, and my real father died when I wasn't even five years old yet. To me, Dad was the best Dad that I could ever get… sleeping habits aside."

"Yeah, I guessed that" Visiting Marty said, smirking. "Our counterpart in the other world where I was Doc's son shared that sentiment."

"The other world where you were Emmett's son?" Susan said, astonished.

Local Marty was astonished too. "And I hoped that I was unique!" he said, smiling as he complained which evidenced that he didn't really mean it, even though he was obviously shocked.

"Yeah, that was an odd world as well" the visitor agreed. "Although there were some very clear differences – in that world, I was actually Doc's biological son. Dad died in June of '66 by a car accident of some sorts, and Doc married Mom. As a result, the other me was slightly taller, and he had brown eyes, but it was still me."

"I'm not a scientist… not yet, at least… but I know for a fact that such a thing shouldn't be possible" Local Marty said, frowning. "How could he still exist? He obviously isn't the original version of himself, if he's still alive while he hasn't got the same parents."

"Yeah, Doc – our Doc – thought it was pretty implausible too" Visiting Marty said. "He had a whole conversation with the local version of him about it, until we… that is, my other self and I… reminded them that there was something else to do but arguing about how time travel worked when dealing with that idea." He frowned. "Did you really say you're going to be a scientist just now? I mean, the other me from that universe wanted to do the same, and smart me did as well, but you're just adopted. You still got George McFly and Lorraine Baines as your biological parents. Are you really planning to be an inventor?"

"Definitely" Local Marty said, either not having heard the 'smart me' line or ignoring it. "I'd love to be able to accomplish a fraction of what Dad does. Once you get the basics, it's not too hard to grasp science, and what you can manage is really fascinating. If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything, after all."

"I think we've all heard that line multiple times before" Visiting Marty said, smirking. "Wonder when Doc came up with it."

"When he was eleven, shortly after first reading Jules Verne" Susan said. "I asked him once. Turns out that he was so fascinated by the first novel he read, Twenty Thousand Miles Under The Sea, that he immediately got the urge to read a second one. He did have some trouble with it, though, as he didn't understand all of it as the second book he read had a lot of difficult words in it. He complained about it to the librarian of duty, and as he was just about to give up, his English teacher happened to be visiting the library and heard his complaint. He explained to Emmett what the hard words were, and told him what the scene meant. Emmett was of course very happy, and at the end of the 'lesson', his teacher reminded him that he should never forget this, and never try to give up like that again, since if he put his mind to it, he could accomplish anything."

"Nice tale" Visiting Marty said, smirking.

"Well, it's the truth" Susan said. "Emmett told it to me that way, and I have no reason to doubt his words."

"I guess you don't" Local Marty said, leaning back in the couch.

Just then, the sound of footsteps could be heard. "Is Doc back?" Visiting Marty said, immediately looking up.

"No, it's not from outside" Susan concluded. "As far as I can hear it, it appears to come from inside the house." She listened better, and as Marty did the same, he could distinguish some voices. Susan could the same, and nodded. "Just as I thought" she said. "Clara must be practicing stair-walking with either Martin or Victoria again."

"Stair-walking?" Visiting Marty repeated, slightly amused.

"Walking down the stairs with the kids to teach them how to do that on their own" Susan clarified. "We do it often with the twins, and apparently, Clara decided to try it with our kids too, to practice for when she'll do it with her own kids. And yeah, they're just a little over twenty months old, but they do seem to be fast learners. What can I say… they're Browns."

"That's a good argument" the visitor smirked.

"Thought so" Susan said, standing up from the couch. "I'd better go warn them. Wouldn't want Clara to be too startled upon seeing there's two of you." She walked off.

"I'd better go too" Local Marty said. "I should call my other selves, tell them you've arrived. I'm sure they'll be interested. Wouldn't want to leave them out of the fun after all."

"If you call this fun, I can tell you haven't dimension-travelled yet" Visiting Marty said, glaring at him. Local Marty smirked, understanding but still thinking of it as funny, and went out of the room to do his telephone duties.

As he was now left alone by both Susan and his other self, Marty felt a feeling of sleepiness beginning to come over him. Trying to resist it, he focused on other thoughts. What would it mean that Doc hadn't returned yet? Was that positive or negative? Would he return soon, or would it take a while yet and would the teen be better off going to check where the inventor was?

The teen tried to stand up to do just that, but found his entire body protesting his movement. He frowned, surprised – he knew he was exhausted, but he hadn't expected himself to be that tired. Shrugging, he sat back down again, and felt the urge to close his eyes return.

"Can't do that" he mumbled to himself. "I've… I've got to wait. I can't sleep 'till Doc gets back and assures me that everything is all right. I might get nightmares."

While that was a valid possibility, Marty did wonder whether his statement there was entirely right. He felt so exhausted that he could even be too tired to dream. All right, that might not even be possible, but he felt that way anyway. He yawned, and leaned back.

This feeling was terrible. Being together with the others was okay, but this was worse. Now all his exhaustion came down on him as one. He looked towards the pillow on the side of the bench. He couldn't sit up anymore, but he didn't dare to lie down, as he might fall asleep then and he couldn't fall asleep as he had to wait for Doc…

The teen touched his eyes. They were so eager to get shut, he had to keep himself concentrated every single second so that they wouldn't close themselves. He felt like he was being tortured in a terrible way – he couldn't close his eyes, but he couldn't keep them open either, as he was alone, and there were no people around to distract them, so he felt so tired…

Finally, he caved in. Lying down didn't mean he would go to sleep after all. He would just rest, rest a little to prepare himself for his eventual visit to bed. Satisfied with that explanation, he lied down, confident that he wouldn't fall asleep.

His confidence was wrong. The moment after he hit the pillow, his eyes shut. Marty barely registered a satisfied feeling coming from the rest that overwhelmed all his senses, and the last thing he heard was Clara's faint cry of "Golly!" as she entered the room, and then, his mind went off to Dreamland just two seconds after he'd lied down, causing him to fall asleep in a half-sitting and half-lying position. Marty had finally gone to sleep, and this time, it would take a while before he would wake up again.

oooooooo

As Marty had already figured, Doc's chat with the Emmett's had taken longer than usual. The inventors had talked, shared brief parts of their life just as Marty had done with his counterpart and Susan, and when they eventually did leave the bus, it was about half an hour after Marty had fallen asleep, and the time was somewhere around 1:50. Doc felt mixed as he looked at that – he was glad that he'd been able to finally find someone who could fix things, but he worried that he had left Marty waiting for too long. He knew how tired the teen – and he himself by extension, even though he preferred not to think about that – was…

"Looks like we've been out here longer than intended" he said, voicing his thoughts after locking the bus and walking back to the house together with the Emmett's. "I hope I haven't kept Marty waiting for too long. Great Scott, what if he's mad at me?"

"He'll understand we needed time for this" Emmett Three said. "We can't do a rush job on something as important as this, after all. He won't be happy, and I think that he might yell at you at first, but eventually, you'll be able to talk some sense into him, and if you won't, we'll do it for you."

Doc smiled thinly at his counterpart. "Thanks" he said. "For being able to stay here, too. I hope that I'm not bothering you too much…"

"Trust us, you aren't" Emmett One assured him. "There's more than enough place for you. You've just brought Marty, the time train and yourself along after all. If the entire family was along, it might have been harder for us to fit you guys into the house. Not that I'm saying we wouldn't have found a solution then, wouldn't want to let any of you guys sleep outside or in a hotel when we can avoid it, but it would be a lot harder. But that shouldn't be any bit of a problem now. It's a big house, as you probably know, since you own it as well, in your dimension."

"Yeah, that's right" Doc said, smiling at his counterpart again, this time a little more. "I just wanted to say that I appreciated what you're doing. You could've just told us to go on since you didn't want to spend time on this."

"Of course I wouldn't have done that" Emmett Three immediately reassured him. "And I'm sure my counterpart wouldn't have either." Emmett One nodded, agreeing. "See? You should've thought more about your opinion of your other selves."

Doc smirked. "Yeah, you're probably right" he said, staring back at the bus as they headed to the front door, which Emmett Three unlocked. "Well, I'm glad that I've finally found some help. I couldn't believe what was happening when I found out that you could fix my dimensional machine."

"Well, it shouldn't be that hard" Emmett One said. "We need a lot of parts from the future, but we've got two time machines, so we can manage that. One for each of us, if you want to know."

"I already guessed that" Doc said. "I suppose that your life was essentially the same until 1955, wasn't it?" He whistled. "I'm sure Marty will have a thing or two to say about this. It's quite fascinating that I'm actually able to meet my counterpart from that reality… but that does come with the fact that I do feel sorry. After all, I created that world."

"You don't have to apologize" Emmett One ensured him. "Emmett Three already did that several times, so we don't need you to do the same. It's really appreciated, but it's not necessary."

"All right, then I won't apologize" Doc quipped. He shook his head. "You know, I believe I've visited a universe much like the one you came from before."

"You told us you went to that alternate world already" Emmett Three said. "You didn't give the specifics, but you already told us that."

"That's not what I meant" Doc said, thinking hard. "I meant on this trip… oh yeah!" He gave himself a gentle slap on the forehead for not thinking about it earlier and forgetting where he'd seen the other version of Hell Valley. "Sorry, it's been some time. It was one of the first dimension hops, even before the universe where we got to rest for a while… that was quite a fascinating dimension by the way, I should really tell you two about that later… and anyway, I visited the Hell Valley world, as we call it. It was in the present day, so I was seeing what the world looked like little over two years after you left it. Well, I didn't know it was you at the time, but now I'm certain. Given the fact that the local me escaped out of the asylum and that you mysteriously disappeared around New Year's of 1986, I'm pretty sure that it must be you. Is that the same thing as what you know, Emmett One?"

"Yes, it definitely is" Emmett One confirmed. 'The 1986 escape part, I mean. That sounds intriguing. I mean, I never really thought that it could be possible to revisit that timeline. It's a timeline, after all, not a dimension… Great Scott. This really sounds like a rather odd situation."

"Oh, it definitely was" Doc said. "I didn't stay there for very long, but I did find some valuable information in the library that the 'Lorraine Baines Hotel' had." He stared at Emmett Three. "Having said that, could you explain to me why you're still holding the doorknob and do not appear to have any plans to open the door any time in the near future?"

Emmett Three blushed, as he twisted the doorknob and opened the door. "Sorry" he said. "I guess I was too distracted by listening to your story. Now, is there anything else you wanted to say? What was that 'Lorraine Baines Hotel', as you put it?"

"It was a hotel of some sorts that had taken the place of Biff Tannen's Pleasure Paradise in that world" Doc said, walking into the door and putting his jacket on the place that Emmett One pointed out to him, on the hat stand. "It wasn't as bad as Biff's Pleasure Paradise of course, but it was still a weird sight. I have to admit I preferred the original Courthouse. I even met Lorraine. She looked a lot younger than she looked in the original alternate world, even younger than her normal self. I guess that money could do that, somehow."

"You're not kidding!" Emmett One exclaimed, also putting his jacket where his other self had done so and following his counterparts through the hallway. "What did Marty think about all that? I can imagine he had quite a thing to say about that."

"He would've" Doc said. "If he had been there, I'm certain he would've commented on that."

"You mean he wasn't?" Emmett Three said, confused. "He didn't want to come along? I can imagine that he wouldn't want that, but to just stay in the bus… it doesn't really sound like something that Marty would voluntarily do."

"He wouldn't" Doc said, wishing he didn't need to say that. "At least, he wouldn't have done that in normal circumstances, but this time, I knocked him out." He let out a deep sigh, as the others gasped. "And yeah, I know, it sounds really mean of me, but my scientific curiosity was rising and I landed on top of the hotel to investigate. Marty was terrified and horrified and told me to get out of there, but I didn't pay any attention to him until he was already at the wheel and gave the computer the destination where we needed to go, according to him. I was annoyed with him, and my temper got out of control, and, frightened as I was that Marty would succeed in getting the time machine up to 88 and erasing my chance to investigate this world, I grabbed the sleep-inducer and used it on Marty." He paused for a moment, thinking back of that moment. "It worked all right… he was out like a light the moment after the flash appeared. Unfortunately, I still had it on four-hour-setting then… I had a hard time waking Marty up after the two hours I'd spent inside the paradise, and he remained half-asleep until we really realised what the natives of the next universe were like. That was when Marty dropped his exhaustion and went from that to being horrified once more." He smirked. "Sounds like a visual cycle, doesn't it? Well, that's what it was for Marty… and sometimes, even for me."

Emmett One gave him a light pat on the back, feeling sympathy for his other self and not bothering to ask what this other world was like. "Well, we'll manage to help you" he said, confidently. "That's something that I'm certain of. And now, all he have to do is making sure Marty knows, too." He walked into the living room, and frowned. "Susan?" he asked, confused. "Where's Marty, honey?"

Doc looked as well, and found to his surprise that Emmett One was right. Marty was no longer sitting on the couch that was to his right as he entered the room. The two baby's – Emmett Three had told them it was his Jules and One's Herbert – were still there, and Susan was also there, with Clara and a boy that looked a lot like Marty, but from the excitement that could be read on his face and the lack of exhaustion coupled with that, it was obvious that this boy was not the Marty that Doc knew. He wondered where his friend was.

Susan, however, managed to answer that question easily. "Upstairs" she said. "In the guest room. We had a nice chat, but as Marty and I had to be out of the room for a little while, each for different reasons, Marty going to call his other self and telling him to come over, which he said that could take a while, and I to make sure that Clara wouldn't walk in on this odd situation, we returned to see him sound asleep. Poor boy must've been completely exhausted."

"Yeah, he was" Doc agreed, accepting the chair that Emmett One pointed out to him. "We've gone through quite a few universes together and well… let me put it this way, I'd be surprised if he wasn't tired. He'd been complaining about it for quite some time now." He smirked. "It's been fifty-two universes, if you want to believe it."

"I know" Clara said, drawing her to Doc's attention for the first time. "Susan told me Marty had shared that information with her." She shook her head. "It's just so odd here" she muttered. "Ever since Emmett saved my life and took me out of the 1880s in early November of '86, I've gone through a real adjusting process. I still can't believe that I'm living in the future now. Call me odd, but I still can't."

"My Clara is mostly the same" Doc said. "Even though she's been here for about a year longer. I wonder what exactly the differences are between the two of you." He glanced at Clara, then at Susan and then at Clara again. "And between you two, of course… must be odd, being married to two versions of the same person."

"Tell me about it" Susan said, smirking. "I've been living this life for over a year now, but it's still weird. Ever since Emmett and I met in that alternate reality, I knew that my life was going to be stranger than before, but I hadn't expected it to be this strange." She shrugged. "Ah well. Strangeness is better than the life I had before Emmett saved me from Biff's gang."

"You met in Biff's reality?" Doc exclaimed, stunned. "Really? Great Scott! I guess that I was subconsciously expecting you to be from this world until now… how was your life there? I can't imagine that it was anything close to 'good'."

"Oh, it definitely wasn't" Susan said, shaking her head. "I was forced to live on the streets. Not really my definition of a happy life. It wasn't all too bad though – I met Jennifer and Ann that way."

"Jennifer I know, or at least I do if you're thinking about the same Jennifer I am, but Ann?" Doc said, frowning. "Who's Ann? Name doesn't ring a bell with me."

"I figured that much" Susan said. "Ann Parker was Jennifer's twin sister and as I was saying, after they ran away from home, I took the mother-role for them. Jennifer had to live with Biff forcing her to be a prostitute every day, so it wasn't really surprising she ran away. Ann had a different life, but it was still no fun. Jennifer ran away first, Ann followed and shortly after that, they met up with me. Things went really fast around that time… that event was just a few days before we met up with Emmett and his group."

"His group?" Doc asked, curiosity rising.

"Yeah, his group" Susan confirmed. "It was a small group, but it was one nonetheless. Marty One, Marty Two and he were together in the mine out of town working on the DeLorean that he had stored there. It was about a month away from being finished – well, they expected it to be a month-and-a-half, but it ended up going faster than expected – when they met us. I'm glad we ended up meeting Emmett, as our life wasn't really too great before that. Of course, there is also the factor that we ended up falling in love with each other, so I would've remained single otherwise, or I might have gotten into a marriage with someone else… who, in no way, could've been better than Emmett."

Emmett One blushed, but Doc simply became more interested. "That sounds fascinating" he said. "How did you two meet, then? You said it was a month before the DeLorean being finished, and in the library I visited in the alternate world – yes, I visited your world as well on one of these trips, and no, Marty didn't get to see that – it said that you departed that world, or at least that version of Hill Valley, in early January. So you should've met early December, if I'm not incorrect."

"You are – it's late November" Susan said. "Yes, that's an interesting story. It all started when I was…" At that, she suddenly stopped.

"What's the matter?" Doc asked, frowning. "Why are you stopping?"

"I just thought of something" Susan said. "Seeing that Marty passed out from tiredness within seconds, and you've probably been up for as long as he has, if not longer since you have to pilot the time bus, shouldn't you be completely exhausted by now? And thus, shouldn't you go to bed?"

Doc frowned. "I don't feel all that tired" he said. "Sure, I am not feeling all too well, but I can wait with going to bed. I'd prefer to hear your story first."

"I don't like telling stories to someone who might collapse from exhaustion half-way through the tale" Susan said, firmly.

"That won't happen" Doc said, though not really sounding very assuring.

"Says who?" Susan countered. "How do you know that? Marty was interested in what we told him too, I could notice that. But he still fell asleep."

"Marty is just a kid" Doc argued. "That's different."

"You're at least sixty-eight" Susan said. "So you should fall in a special category as well."

"I had a rejuvenation" Doc said. "So that's not a good argument, Mrs. Brown."

"Maybe not" Susan allowed. "But you're still on the older side. No offence, of course, but I think that you would be better off when you simply took my advice and went to bed. Especially considering you've got work to do on the time bus, and you do want to be freshly awake then."

"She's right" Clara said. "I know you better than that, Emmett. If we don't say anything, you'll remain up forever."

"Mom is right, um, Doc" Marty agreed. "You saw how my other self reacted. We don't want you to experience anything like that."

Doc sighed, and smirked. "I can't win this fight, can I?" he commented, looking at his other selves.

"I guess you can't" Emmett One said, smiling. "But Susan does make a point. I know how I can be in these situations. If you've really been up for… how long has it been?"

"Approximately seventy hours" Doc admitted. "All right, I suppose that I should go to bed then. Where am I supposed to sleep?"

"Second guest room" Emmett Three said. "It's very simply to find – just go up the stairs that you saw in the hallway and go to the first room to your left. There should be some pyjama's of mine that can fit you in the cabinet there. It doesn't matter which one you take. One and I mostly share anyway."

"All right, thank you" Doc said. "When do you think I should wake up?"

"Whenever you like" Clara said. "And don't protest that either. If you've been awake for as long as you have, you deserve to sleep right through the night."

"I guess so" Doc replied, sighing. "All right, I'd better go then. See you tomorrow." He yawned, took a final look at his counterparts' sons in the box, and left the room to head for the hallway once again.

As he went up the stairs, the inventor started thinking. Today – if he could even call the complete amount of hours he'd gone through a 'day' – had been a very long day, and his alternate wives were right – he'd need his rest. He wished they hadn't forced it so much on him, but well, that couldn't be helped. For now, all that mattered was getting a good night's sleep.

Following his other self's directions, the inventor soon arrived at the room he was supposed to sleep in. The room looked pretty much like the guest room in his own house. There was a bed that seemed to be about his size, and a cabinet of some sorts. Doc smiled, and went over there. It took him a few moments to find a pair of pyjama's that suited him, but then, he was quickly inside them.

As he was just relaxing, eager to lay down on the bed, Doc noticed something else. A faint snoring noise of some sorts was coming from another room. Curious, the scientist walked over to the source of the noise. He opened the door as soft as he could, and was surprised to recognise his own Marty lying there in what he himself would identify as Verne's room.

The scientist looked at his friend with fascination. Marty seemed to be very deep in dreamland, and the inventor suspected that, even if he would go and take his old saxophone and make an awful lot of noise with it, he still couldn't wake the teen up. As Doc looked closer, he could see that Marty didn't notice the slightest bit that his friend was there. Even after just half an hour, the teen was so exhausted that if he was to take his time bus and travel through time five times within two minutes, thus creating fifteen sonic booms, the teen wouldn't even sleep lighter.

Figuring that this wasn't going to help him much either, the inventor exited the room again, and headed back to his own guest room. He now noticed a clock there, saying the time was about 2:07 in the afternoon. Not his normal sleeping time, but considering the time he was supposed to be at… He looked at the time on his watch. Seven minutes past four in the morning of April seventh. And the last time he'd slept… well, he didn't know for sure, but it had been some time at least. He'd said seventy hours, but that was a real rough guess. Could be less, could be even more. He really didn't know.

Sitting down on the side of the bed, Doc began to count off the universes he'd been to, and the percentage of getting help so far. Besides the world where Marty was a teen genius and had invented the time machine, this was the only world that had gotten him some progress. He could probably afford to rest for a while. It wouldn't harm him, that was for sure. And who knew, he might actually relax from it.

He started to wonder how long they'd be here. If Emmett – One or Three – could really fix the time machine, then they couldn't do it within a day, that was for sure. It would probably take at least a week, probably two or three, maybe four. Who knew. They'd have to take some time analysing the time machine's exact problems, make occasional trips to the future… that all took time, time that they would have, but would not like to waste.

He also wondered what Marty would think of all this. He knew the teen would probably be glad that they got to rest – it was the main thing he'd been talking about for a long time – but what would they do afterwards? Would Marty be able to assist in repairing the time bus, or would he have to sit down, do nothing, and bore himself for days after each other? That didn't seem to be a very attractive prospect, and Doc was sure that Marty wouldn't like that idea in the least.

Well, at least they had some sort of distraction on them. Doc felt now very glad that Marty had picked up those movies in the world where they were film characters – they might be kind of odd, but it would be a sufficient way to pass the time. He wondered if he'd get to watch a little of it himself. Probably the day after he would wake up would be simply spend with adjusting to their current situation anyway, so maybe he would get that chance, some time.

That did bring up another matter all together – when would he wake up? As a reflex, his eyes went over to the sides to check whether an alarm clock was around. It wasn't – either there had never been any, or his other self's wife – Clara or Susan, either of them – had removed it, not thinking it would be necessary. He shook his head. He was okay with getting some rest, but he wanted to set the limit himself.

He felt another yawn coming up. Apparently, he was thinking way too much again. He sighed, took the blanket off the bed, and lied down on the bed. Now, he should simply get some rest. It had been a long day for him after all – that was something that Susan had been correct in. He still felt a little annoyed at their determination that he should sleep, but he was beginning to get their point.

Doc placed his head on the pillow, and closed his eyes. This was a delicious feeling, he had to admit that. Susan and Clara had been right. He should really rest now. His eyes, which had been annoyed all the time, now began to rest themselves. He sighed, and relaxed completely.

His wait for sleep to arrive didn't take long, despite his fears on when he would be awoken. Moments after he had lied down, Doc's mind went blank as he finally had some rest. It would take some time before he would wake up again, that was for sure. But it didn't matter anymore. Everything was finally all right again.


End file.
